Kenzi dragged her tired, aching feet through the door of her home in a decidedly sour mood. She and Bo had gone up against a skin walker for a client and as usual, after it was all said and done she had trudged home alone, and Bo ran off for sexy times with her smexy doctor. When she finally threw herself down on her trusty, lumpy, couch, she let out a sigh of relief. Not even five seconds had passed before the loud annoying pounding started at the door. She briefly thought that it might be a big bad come to cause havoc but dismissed it, they rarely knocked.

“Come in!” Not the smartest thing to yell in her new life but she was just too damn tired to care. Her feet ached far too much for her to get up and walk the whole ten steps to the door so if, whoever wanted in they would just have to do it themselves damn it! When she heard the door close she moved her arm from where is rested against her eyes and glanced over to see who her new visitor was. There in her doorway was none other than the Ash himself. Great.

“I need to speak with your owner, pet.”

“Sorry, she’s not here.” She’d learned a while ago that arguing with the Fae (any Fae) about the owner thing was just a waste of perfectly good oxygen.

“Where is she?” The question sounded like nothing more than polite curiosity, but her alarm bells were going off at top volume. Slowly she sat up to stare at the Fae currently taking up her space and noticed something was definitely wrong. She thought about lying for about two seconds before she discarded the idea as one of her more stupid thoughts.

“She’s with Lauren.” Which was something she was slowly starting to believe he already knew. Carefully she began to rise from the couch, for some reason her fight or flight response was being tripped and only a very stupid human fought the Fae one on one. And there it was staring her in the face the difference she couldn’t place before. Lachlan was alone! She’d never seen the Ash sans guards either inside the compound or out of it; it was like against their religion on something for the big guy to take a step alone.

“Mind if I ask where your guards are, not prying, just never seen you without your posse. Something up?” The question gave her the time needed to get fully on her feet. Now, what? Well, she supposed that depended on his answer.

“My you are a very observant little human, aren’t you?” The way he said human sounded very much like an insult, an attitude most of the Fae shared. Her anger rose for about half a second before she pushed it down again for the much more useful survival instinct. Besides anger wouldn’t help with this, whatever this was, at all.

“I’ve been called worse.”

Lachlan watched the brave little human before him slowly begin to inch towards the stairs likely thinking to make her escape. If only she knew how much that excited him.

When he’d first met her he had paid her no real attention, thinking her nothing more than food the succubus kept on hand. It didn’t take him long to see that his initial impression of her had been erroneous. Even when he’d come to see that she was so much more to Bo, and even several other Fae, he hadn’t given her much more than a passing thought from time to time. Then came the incident with Baba Ya Ga and the lengths everyone was willing to go to in order to retrieve one lowly human.

That was what prompted him to take a closer look at the girl who’d aligned herself with the unaligned succubus. The more he watched her, the more he heard of her courage and disdain for tradition and her flippant disregard for the views of her betters, the more intrigued he became. He knew he was obsessed and that knowledge was what brought him here today. There was really only one cure for obsession, possession.

He had all night, Lauren had her orders to keep the succubus away by any means necessary. The good doctor would do as he told her or he made it clear he would see no reason to continue her special project.

“I would like to be candid with you. While deception has its place I really see no point in it with one of your kind.” He rarely dealt with humans, but he didn’t hold them to such low standards as many of his kind. He just loved the momentary spark in her eyes every time someone spoke a slur against her sorry species.

“Alright, why don’t you explain what’s going on and I’ll put my tiny brain on high to try and keep up. Only, please, try to use small words, wouldn’t want my head to explode now would we.” Her biting sarcasm was really quite amusing.

“To put it in the simplest terms I find that I desire you.”

“Hmmm well not that I’m not… flattered, but I belong to Bo so…” Her steps towards the stairs were becoming bigger and more noticeable.

“Yes of course.” He acknowledged her point, allowing her a feeling of relief for several seconds before yanking it away. “However, since Bo is unaligned and not present to reinforce her claim on you… I’m afraid that makes you … fair game.” He counted the seconds in his head while that new development settled in her mind and she came to a decision. She started to run before he made it to ten. Perfect, he loved the chase.

Kenzi ran up the stairs full tilt. She would have preferred running out the door, now she felt like a B horror movie bimbo, but he’d never moved away from it the whole time, so to run out would be to run into him. Deliberate move on his part most likely. As she reached Bo’s bedroom, both the closest and the only one with complete walls on all sides, she slammed the door and locked it. Now what? No need to panic there were always options, if her childhood taught her anything it was that one inescapable fact, frantically looking around she took note of everything she had.

Weapons! No! If she injured the leader of the Light Fae all hell would rain down on her and Bo. Windows! Running to the closest window she heard Lachlan on the other side of the locked door. Opening the window she leaned out a little to judge how far she’d have to jump, and found Lachlan’s missing guards. Slamming it shut she looked around in a panic for something, anything that could help her.

Can’t use the weapons, no way out, no phone, hers was downstairs and Bo’s was of course with Bo herself, no options. At least no good ones. Looking towards the door she realized Lachlan wasn’t doing anything but standing out in the hall, she could see his shadow from under the door. She thought briefly of trying to wait him out but she doubted very much that he went through all of this for that to be allowed to happen.

One final option, try to reason with him, yeah like that was going to work.

“What are the chances you’ll forget about this whole thing? I won’t even tell Bo!” Her pleas were met with laughter that grated on her nerves, or at least what was left of them.

“Sorry, no chance of that at all.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. Looking around one last time, hoping for a last-minute rescue she felt her eyes begin to fill with tears.

“Have you realized there’s no escape yet? Or do you need another minute?”

Smug bastard! Right as the thought entered her mind the door flew open and he stood before her with a cat that ate the canary grin. Fuck!
She backed up a few steps until her back hit the wall, the problem with being in the only room with four intact walls was that there were no convenient exits, once again there was only one way out and he was standing in front of it.

“There is really only one way out of this, as a former street urchin I would think you would have already known that, or has all this time as a pampered pet dulled your wit so much.”

“Up yours Ash-hole. I thought your people were supposed to be all uppity superior types, you really gonna lower yourself this much.” She knew it was a long shot, but she had to try something, and making him think she wasn’t worth it was the best she had at the moment.

“Normally I would be right, to lay with one of your kind is considered beneath one such as myself.”

“So-“

“So, I find the only thing that can rid me of those feelings of self-loathing you seem to be trying to invoke in me, are the thoughts of you truly beneath me.”

She was so completely screwed, what the hell was she supposed to do now? If she fought she would lose, and might even die, but could she really just give in? Any other day, with any other guy, she would choose to fight to the death, but he was the Ash which meant he not only had her right where he wanted her right now, but he also had power over her friends and she had no doubt that if she fought hard enough he would use that against her as well.

Her only shot now was if Bo-Bo got tired of playing doctor and came home early. Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because he began to laugh again.

“It will do you no good to look for rescue from your darling succubus, my lovely pet doctor has her orders, your owner will be distracted for the rest of the night at least, and none of your other Fae friends have the power to fight my claim over you this night. You must see by now that you only truly have one option, why do you still fight me so?”

He was right of course, but then again she was beginning to think that he’d planned this whole thing like way in advance so of course he was right. He had her right where he wanted her and there really was only one thing to do. Taking a few steps forward she found herself right in front of him, barely an inch between them they stood so close.

“What exactly did you have in mind?”

---

As the sun rose on the new day Kenzi turned over to snuggle closer to Lachlan not even trying to hide her smirk of satisfaction.

“Very well, you were right, that was a fun game to play.” He said as though the admission pained him.

“Of course it was just wait until the costumes come into it. Talk about fun!”

“Why am I suffering these indignities again?”

“Easy, because you love me silly.”

“Oh, right. Whatever was I thinking?”

“That I’m awesome of course.”

“Even more so now that I got you, and now that I have I never intend to let you go.”

“I would never want you to.”