The Place Where Lost Things Go

"If you wanted something nicer for once, you know I can afford it. Please... Feel free to if you would like. You know how to access my private accountings."

As it was just the two of them. She simply melted into your embrace. As she did, you would notice her bracelet, the one item that had NEVER left her person as long as you'd known her was absent. Her face buried in against your throat, it was the slightest of nods at your careful warning. Speaking just as quietly in return,

"You're not wrong... But I... I need to be here. I would understand if you don't want to stay personally. I'll reach out to Athena on your behalf. Just..m I don't know how or why, but I can't leave. Even if means she finds me again."

"Wherr you go, I go. You know this. And I will take your suggestion under advisement. I did see a rather nice looking hotel near here." He chuckled "Mayhaps we should call it an evening and retire for the night" he did notice the missing bracelet and swooped down to her level "And I trust you, that you know what your doing. You've never disappointed"

"I know. I still had to say it. I am allowed to try to protect you as well."

Your comment of retiring for the night earned you a Gaelic shrug.

"I know I should meet with Morpheus... Just my mind is too restless. Though getting out of these clothes would be nice at least."

Your mention of her having your trust did earn you a rare, true smile. Having noted your gaze landing on his naked wrist,

"Siren's Tears. He had more need of what i put away in them so long ago than I did."

He merely nodded "I hope whomever it was gifted to finds it useful and beneficial" he pulled a flip phone out and dialed a number. One listening would hear minute talk of a room. No discussion of price, nor name of a hotel. He hung up and looked to her "There's an opening at a rather prestigious hotel nearby. You said price was nothing. We are expected." And held his hand out to her "Come, let us go shed these modern day niceties."

With the core of what she was, she shouldn't be able to trust a male the way she trusted him, and yet... He wasn't just any male, he was her Ghuardian. Considering he didn't even view her as female, much less attractive, maybe that explained it ? Then why did that thought also bother her ? She shook her head slightly for a moment, clearly working on clearing it of such thoughts. Smiling faintly that you'd finally actually been agreeable to getting something nicer, she nodded and settled her hand into yours.

"Lead on and I shall follow."

They made no scene as they departed. His wolves already having a car waiting for them at the front, he allowed the goodbyes and pleasantries but kept her moving until she was settled into the back of vehicle. He climbed in beside her and shut them in, rapping his knuckles on the window to let the driver know it was safe to proceed. They would both feel the aura of the building, or more so, who was inside of it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and spoke quietly "Should I find another hotel?"

For what short duration there was of the drive, she traveled curled up with her head in his lap. You would know she felt the presence as well and sighed.

"As long as we leave him be, we should be fine. It's not as if we're here to attack him and that will be clear. That is unless of course you think it a security risk. Is there another hotel you even liked as much ?"

He chuckled "As long as it doesn't bother you. God-bloods believe themselves all powerful. This one seems no different. He will most likely give us a wide berth" the car pulled up in front of the front doors and parked. The door opened a moment later and Krysto exited immediately taking in the surroundings. A ratty looking man bumped into him and apologized and made to hurry away but was intercepted by Krystos wolves. Krysto's hand landed on the man's shoulder "Pardon me, I believe you have something that belongs to me" he turned the man around and retrieved the folded leather that held his false identity and some money in it from the man's inside coat pocket and spoke quietly "And if I see you around here again your police will be the least of your worries" the man made no excuses nor sound as he quickly departed. Holding his arm out to her "Shall we milady?" With that warm smile of his.

Oh how the times had changed. Once upon a time, luxury had been one leveled, open and sprawling. Free to be within. It was a beautiful building regardless. Rolling her eyes up at him in playful exasperation before he departed the vehicle,

"This is more than fine. Worst case scenario, we move."

Waiting inside the car as he did his initial security sweep, she took the opportunity to clear her head. Sometimes it was an odd sort of torture being so close to him and yet so far away. While she primarily hated sex, especially with males, something told her he'd be good at it like he was with everything else. Sighing internally, for a moment she wondered what things could be like were they two normal people.

Blinking when suddenly his arm and smile were there, she banished such odd thoughts before taking the offered arm. Leaning in to quietly murmur,

"If you keep calling me Malady, I'm going to run around naked all night. I have a name."

"I suppose it's a good thing I'm not calling you that then" he held the door for her as they entered the building. The Pack swept around her as Krysto stepped over to the check in counter. The three women sitting there all blushed instantly, and any with heightened senses would smell their arousal. He seemed oblivious to it "Checking in. Kristopher Wolvesbane." The blonde behind the counter made a point to lean forward in her chair, clearly trying to tip those massive breasts of hers out of her top. The other two seemed very agitated by the fact she was the one getting his attention. None of them spoke as the first grabbed two key cards and activated them. She stood and made a show of leaning over the counter while handing him a pamphlet and the keys "Here you go sir. My name is Cherry, if there's anything you need, anything at all, please don't hesitate to ask. You can call the desk here and ask for me" he nodded as he took the items and leaned in slightly "You are a treat. Thank you kindly, Milady" he spun on his heel and gestured towards the elevator for Ash and the Wolves to move towards it. Once they were inside he let out a shaky breath "Sometimes I wish they wouldn't throw themselves at me like that"

The snarl that came from her throat as she watched the blatant display was not even a sound she realized she'd made. Those normally mesmerizing eyes were growing rapidly more intense and for a moment the lights in the entirety of the building would flicker. While the wolf men may not utter a word, they were more than intelligent enough to tighten their formation around her. Sometimes protecting a person meant protecting them from themselves. It was the subtlest brushes of fur against her skin from several of them. Not restrictive nor restraining but a reminder that seemed to call her back to herself.

His gesture to head towards the elevator actually came in the wake of the wolves already starting to heard her that way. Once the doors swished quietly closed, offering them that modicum of privacy, she quirked a brow at him.

"Then stop being an attractive, charming male, Krysto. If I didn't know your story, I'd say Aphrodite herself had claimed you, not Athena. Even I as a man hater am acknowledging that. I think the only thing those three hate about a male is when the attention isn't focused on them. You could always ask your Goddess to make you ugly. That might help."

He chuckled but didn't look at her "Aye, believe it or not I actually was almost cast over the Cliffside." His eyes closed "The Seer deemed me unworthy. It was my father that urged her to reconsider. General Ajax was a good man" a rarity for him, the hard case he produced held clove cigarettes. He placed one in his lips and put the case back. He didnt light it, and when one of his wolves held up a lighter he waved shaking his head "Thank you Bax. I don't need to actually smoke it" the elevator dinged at the penthouse level and the doors slid open. It was quite apparent where the Norse God-Bloods were, coming from the room on the right. He stepped lightly as they passed and opened the way in for her, his eyes never leaving that door until they were being sealed in by their door.

As the elevator ascended floors to their room, it suddenly stopped as the doors whooshed open to admit, or at least attempt to admit a very portly. A very drunk male. His lecherous gaze quickly landing on Ash, he seemed not to give a whit that there were a plethora of men with her.

"Wait for another elevator. Men assist him in seeing that he does."

It was rare that she ever used her voice of power, but she did now. There was something almost alien to her when she did, an otherness that most would find terrifying. Assuming that the wolves would move out, she waited until the doors were closed and they had started moving again. Once they were in between floors, she hit the stop button. It came to a surprisingly non jarring halt, the lights switching over to a dim red emergency shade.

"What gives, Krysto ? Why are you not looking at me this time ? How did I give offense ?"

He did look over at her. The sadness would be very apparent "Just thinking about my father. And the sacrifices he made for me." He hit the stop button again "No offense was given, and none was taken. I simply have difficulties dealing with my own emotions still to this day." He pulled her into a hug and whispered into her ear "You are a Divine Being worthy of this world and the next. Any man lucky enough to catch you eye would do well to cherish the Goddess that you are"

She sighed softly, internally kicking herself as the lights kicked back to normal and the elevator started moving again.

"A divine being you say ? Here I thought we were supposed to be hiding our truths. There was one once. I thought. He and I. We're... Incompatible sadly."

Shrugging slightly in your embrace, those ethereal, graceful fingers deftly worked their way beneath your clothing to press to the flesh of your back. Seeming soothed by the contact,

"Not a Goddess, Krysto. Just empowered by a portion of one that wants me dead. Yours at least likes you. You're going to have to tell me about your Father some day. Talking about it might help. Besides, you know my secrets. Most of them at least."

He would lead her into their room and settle them both on the couch. He to enjoyed the contact of her flesh to his. It was beyond sexual, and pure intimacy. An intimacy the two of them had cultivated over their many years. It wasn't that he didn't desire her, but he was only half a man as it were. Athena may have given him her blessing, but he was still cursed. His member hadn't risen for anything in centuries. Millenia. But this time, with her holding him like the last pylon before the end, was something he would never trade. His voice was quiet as he fell into the stories of his father. Into the Legend of Ajax. His father had been a righteous and kind man, for a Spartan. Not only had he been favored by Athena herself, but also the Legendary Leonidas. Ajax had always defended Krysto and made sure he felt to be a part of the community. But he had been a recluse and preferred the company of his wolves. Ajax had seen that and made him Pack Master. His wolves respected and cherished Ajax as much as he had, but they viewed Krysto as their Alpha. He hadn't even noticed them come in, dispersing their illusions of flesh for their natural furred forms. They had quietly gathered around the two of them in a pack cuddle.

She wasn't a reader of minds, not that she couldn't, but it was an invasion of privacy that she detested using without invitation. A breech that she would never in a million years use upon him. Though if she had, it would perhaps have made certain things so much simpler. Or very possibly made them more complicated. However being as it was a thing he would never tell and she would never know to ask it was a non-entity. For the moment.

Sliding her bare arms further around his torso, she kicked off her shoes before curling further into him. Nuzzling her cheek against his chest, she let the soothing sound of his voice lull away her worries. It left her mind clear for the moment to fully focus on the story he had never told her in hundreds, many hundreds of years. She did note the pack come in and revert to their truest selves, their closeness bringing a small smile to her lips. When he finally fell silent, she remained quiet, working on fully processing it all.

"Thank you for telling me. I just wish you had sooner so I could have tried to help you shoulder the weight. But since we're sharing, I don't know who my parents actually are. Shortly before I was kidnapped from my village, who I thought to be my parents broke their silence."

"We are all doomed to become orphans" he gave her a slight squeeze "But our parents don't define us. Simply give guidance." He laid his head back and shimmied down slightly to get more comfy his hand lightly stroking her shoulder. He looked over to the window glimpsing the white feathers of a great horned owl perched atop the railing of the balcony. Its head spun to look at him briefly before taking flight.

She didn't say anything immediately but instead leaned back enough to be able to tug that dress off over her head. Casting it aside to the hotel room floor, you would realize she had not been wearing a single stitch of clothing under it. Leaning back in then, her fingers slowly undid the buttons of your shirt before splaying open the material. Leaving your chest as bared as her own flesh, she pressed herself back in against you. Slipping her arms back around you then,

"You're not wrong. I just have so many questions left unanswered. What's wring with me that my birth parents didn't want me being one of them."

He no longer felt shame for the scars he carried. Once that shirt was pulled from his frame one would see, the millenia worth of scars from the many battles he had fought. From neck to his waist, and clearly beyond. But it was one in particular, conveniently over his heart, that he always felt shame over. He tried not to dwell on it, and he was careful not to draw attention to it. Her words registered in his mind and he smirked "There's nothing wrong with you. They simply were not worthy of raising you"

It was brief, but on the tail end of your words, there was a hiccuped sob. Singular, but it gave away just how much the pain of her own past ate at her. Using something, anything else to refocus herself, she pulled her head back from where it had been laying on your chest. Letting her gaze lock with yours, she lowered her head slowly and began kissing each and every one of your scars that she had access to at the moment. The last she came to whether by chance or design was the one over your heart. Before she laid her lips to it, she murmured ever so softly,

"You're going to meet someone some day. Someone whose going to shatter your very foundations. Someone that you would die for if need be, and not because you were ordered to but you chose freely to do so. When that day comes ? I'll go to Athena myself and fight for your chance to wholly be with them."

You could hear the sincerity, the pulse of absolute truth. The words whether intended to be or not had just become an Oath, and as thus binding words.

"But for now, I'll hold you. It's the best I can offer."

Lowering her head, she pressed her lips to that last scar and let them remain there several heartbeats longer than the others.

If only she had known how he felt. But he himself was bound. Could not speak the words he desperately wished to. He hated the fact that he was forced to hide that from her. His mind went back to who was clearly now their neighbor and jealousy took hold briefly. How wonderful it would be to have been blessed by one of theirs, instead of the pious, selfish gods he had the unfortune to be tied to. The words spilled from him "And one day you will meet a man. And this man will change your world"

Those last words were the ones that truly broke her. While it was surely farthest from your intention, you felt the heat of her tears. Smelled the storm raging within her as there was no sound to these. But she laid her cheek back to your chest and sobbed. In a way that you had never seen from her before. Her ethereal, fae like body wracked with the force of them, and yet through it all she managed to somehow keep the leash on any other storms brewing.

In that cabin where Steele and the God he hosted slumbered, that bracelet spanning their wrist flared violently for a moment. Brightly as the nooning day sun before going dim again. Though now it pulsed with the energy being dumped into it.

Back at the Hotel, you held her distraught in a way you had never seen and entirely clueless as to why.

He held her. It hadn't been the first time she had cried in front of him, and he never judged her for it. He honestly never even talked to her about it, at least never initiated any conversation about it. The scream that sounded from next door almost had him moving, then he remembered who was there. The 'thud' that followed it was also note worthy, but he wrote it off. The Norse could handle themselves. He simply hoped whoever was at war over there stayed over there.

The tears burnt themselves out eventually. Some point after them, she did unfasten your pants and unless you were stopping her, tug you out of them. If you didn't stop her at that first stage, anything that was under them was simply removed as well. Should all of that be allowed, she would stretch back out over you, the blanket from along the back of the couch being claimed to be drug over the two of you.

"Sounds like he's having fun over there. Makes me wonder who would be willing to put up with his charming personality long enough for that. Oh wait... Paid women are still a thing these days."