He woke to the soft clink of his bedroom door shutting. Silently he prepared for possible danger. Claws ready but not sprung yet. Without moving his head, he let his eyes slide toward the door.

The dark shape of a woman was silhouetted against the dim light in the window. She moved slowly toward his bedside. Her scent was unfamiliar, and Logan stopped breathing and readied for a fight. But then the figure tilted her head just enough into the light that he could make out the streaks of silver that lined her face.

“Marie!” he gasped. “Jesus, don’t *do* that? Trying to get skewered again, kid?” He was trying to make out what was new in her scent. [new shampoo, maybe?]

She shook her head. “No, don’t want to get skewered,” she said. “I’ve got something to show you. A surprise.”

Logan sat up in his bed, leaning against the wall. “Big secret? Had to come show me in the middle of the night, eh?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, I’m awake, what is it?”

[yeah, definitely a different shampoo. And is that...]

“You gotta come to my room for it.”

[can’t be]

With a grunt, he threw his legs over the side of the bed to stand up. The move bought him closer to her, and then he was sure of it.

[holy crap! Rogue?]

He hadn’t recognized her smell because he had never smelled her like this before. Now he could smell her arousal clearly, the dampness between her legs. This recognition caused instant warmth in his groin, and drew a low growl deep in his throat, which he hoped to hell she hadn’t heard.

[easy there, little dude. Might not be for us, anyway. Maybe she just had a dream before she came in here...]

“Come on,” she whispered and led the way to his door. He followed in his bare feet and sweat pants – followed her robed form quietly up the hall to her door. She opened it and led him inside.

Inside her bedroom, she turned and approached him, smiling.

“Okay, Rogue. Where’s my surprise?”

Without a word, she reached her hand up toward his face. He stared into her eyes, trying not to flinch, trying to trust her. Her fingertips touched the skin of his cheek, then slid back toward his sideburns until her palm was pressed flat against his skin. Logan stood frozen, waiting, but nothing happened.

“Logan,” she purred, “He did it. Charles fixed me.”

She brought her other hand up to cradle the other side of his face. She slid her hands back until her fingers curved around the back of his head, and drew his head down toward her.

Logan felt the blood pounding in his head. Every nerve was on edge, feeling her skin against his, feeling her warmth as her body drew against his, hearing her breath, smelling her arousal. She brought their mouths together in a kiss that was not chaste and sweet like he would have expected from her, but instead full of hunger, demanding. He returned the kiss and more, pushing her backward until she bumped up against her dresser. He grabbed the back of her neck with one strong hand, the small of her back with the other, and ground his mouth into hers as though to devour her.

[she’s mine. She’s always been mine. She’ll always be mine]

He brought his hand from her back up in between them, and slid it under her robe, pushing it off one shoulder. He released her mouth and started eating his way down her throat, sucking and nipping and rubbing her soft skin with his rough whiskers. He started to bite down on her collarbone, then stopped himself and looked up at her face.

She opened her eyes and looked down at him, and her face showed no fear. “Don’t stop, Logan. I’m not lettin’ you stop now.” She pulled the robe off her other shoulder, letting it sag around her waist, where it was held up by the dresser. She dragged her fingernails down the side of his ribcage, stopping with her fingers resting on the waist of his sweat pants. “I like it. It’s what I’ve been wanting.”

[oh god, baby, me too]

He pulled her away from the dresser. Her robe fell at her feet and he pulled her naked body to the bed. He wanted to worship her, run his hands on every part of her, eat her alive and crush her in his hands and disappear inside of her.

He tried to run his hands slowly over her body, but she bucked against him and clawed at his arms and would not let him be slow and gentle. She fought him, but not to get away – to make him grab her tighter, to make him push harder against her, to make him growl against her skin.

She turned her back to him, on her hands and knees on the bed, and rammed her ass back against him. She arched her body up, reached over her shoulder to grab the back of his hair in her fingers. Pulled his face close to her neck and said, “Now, Logan. Now.”

And he obliged, yanking off his sweat pants and climbing on top of her, taking her roughly while she smiled and pressed back against him.

“Call me Marie, Logan,” she demanded.

He grunted something she couldn’t hear.

“Call me Marie,” she said again. “And tell me I’m yours.”

[mine mine mine mine mine]

“Tell me!” she cried, throwing her head back against his shoulder, spitting the words into his ear.

And he told her. Grunting while he thrust into her, holding her firmly around the waist with one forearm, grabbing the hair at the back of the head with his other hand. Snarling the words out to the rhythm of their sex. “You’re mine. Mine. Fuckin’ mine. Mine. Damn it, mine. My Marie. Fuck. Oh, fuck. You’re mine. Marie.”

It was then that he became aware of Rogue standing frozen in the doorway. Viewing with horror the scene on her bed. Unable to make a sound. She saw the look of shock, and then terror, and then rage that came across Logan’s face.

Logan roared, adamantium flashed, and Mystique fell to the bed, her neck all but severed, her head flopping grotesquely to one side, the blood instantly soaking the bed covers. As her body twitched for the last time, and as the blue returned to her skin, Logan pulled away from her.

He stumbled toward Rogue, sheathing his claws, reaching toward her.

She jerked away from him, choking. “Don’t!” she cried.

---

Neither of them wanted anyone to know what had happened. The story that became public knowledge at the school was that Mystique had broken in to snatch Rogue, and that Logan had caught her and killed her.

Rogue and Logan were never the same after that. Gone were the light bantering, the comfortable ease in their postures around each other, the glances that said “we know something they don’t know.” Now when they passed each other in the hall, they averted their eyes.

Now when Logan saw Rogue, part of him remembered her [not her] gasping “Now, Logan. Now!” And the rest of him remembered how her [should have been unmistakable] scent had drawn his attention away from the woman he was fucking and to the doorway. He remembered the fear and disgust on her face as he turned toward her from Mystique’s body. And he remembered how she jerked away from his hand and would not look at him again.

Now when Rogue saw Logan, she saw images of sheer horror. First of him brutally slamming into her naked body, swearing and snarling that she was his, her hair tangled in his fist. Then the image that haunted her nightmares, constantly for months, and occasionally for the rest of her life – Logan’s claws slicing through her throat, her body falling lifeless from his onto the bed.

They could not make it right again. Over the years they became less uncomfortable with each other, but what they had once shared was forever lost. Replacing it was a constant low-grade shame that would not wash out.

---

Mystique had given her life to ruin Logan’s one chance at happiness. She had loved him and hated him since that night at the Statue of Liberty. She had been truly alive while fighting him, wanting to kill him or screw his brains out, she couldn’t decide which to do first. She felt he was her true kindred spirit, the only person she had ever met who was both as vital and as feral as she -as oblivious to the rules of society, as free from restraint, and as beautiful in his violence.

When he turned her away that night in the tent, she had sworn to herself that she would ruin him. She had seen the way he looked at Rogue. She had been disgusted that he would prefer that stupid *child* to her, and also that cripple Xavier to Magneto. She had begun watching and plotting.

She wanted his downfall, wanted him to be ashamed to his adamantium-covered bones, wanted him to feel regret like he had never known.

She felt no regret at all. Even as her neck opened and her vision dimmed. She had won.