Fake Empire: Rhiannon 1/2
Title: Fake Empire: Rhiannon 1/2
Pairing: Emma/Emily
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Rating: NC-17 (Warnings TG sex - question to self: why is this bit explicit and the nonTG stuff not?)
Universe: Fake Empire
Apologies: Some of this might seem familiar, from those Citrus Taste prompts ages ago, but a little edited. And it continues on, somewhat.
Emily had been seeing her around, this woman, tall and narrow, with dark hair and a sharp chin, who looked unnervingly like Didi. The first time she saw her on the metro, her long straight hair brushing the hips of her navy suit. Her make-up was just a little too strong for a normal businesswoman, and when she turned Emily could see the forest of metal in her ears.
But it was the way she stood that distracted Emily into missing her stop. It sent an icy shiver down her spine, like the feeling prey gets when it spots a predator.
It was Hellfire, pure and simple.
(Emma had stopped doing it all the time. She only fell into the stance when she felt threatened or was around people she didn’t like. But after seeing her walk into the Hellfire Club like she owned it, like everyone in the room had better drop to their knees and offer to lick her boots, it wasn’t a stance Emily was going to forget.)
Emily saw the woman again when she stopped in at the Indian restaurant to pick up dinner. (Didi had begged for chicken korma as usual. Emily always ended up bringing the leftovers to work for lunch, and she could feel her arteries clang every time. She had finally put an end to Jubilee’s regular order of paneer pakoras. Jubilee and Didi might be able to subsist on a diet of cream sauce and deep fried cheese, but two meals of that and Emily’s immune system took a nosedive.) She was sitting at a table by the door, a barely touched masala dosa in front of her, and she was close enough that Emily could see her eyes.
They were blue. Emma’s eyes.
When she got home she dropped the sack of food on the table and headed into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Jubilee and Didi, sprawled on the living room rug with paints and glitter barely noticed her. She took out her phone and hit Emma’s speed-dial.
It rang, a bright hope in lonesome silence, six times, and went to voicemail.
She checked her watch. Maybe Emma was running an after school activity? A mission? Her thumb hovered over the #5. Finally she hit it.
“…Hello?” came a tired sounding voice. Emily glanced at her watch. It was almost 6pm.
“Ro? Did I wake you?”
“It’s no trouble. I should have been getting up soon either way.”
“Where… are you?”
“Australia, in fact.”
“Oh.” Emily expelled air. “You won’t be able to tell me why Emma’s not answering her phone then.”
“I’m sorry. Is there something wrong?”
“No, nothing. I just wanted to ask her about… about something. Have you heard anything from the Hellfire club lately?”
She could picture Ororo’s surprise at the question. “No, I believe they have been quiet as of late.”
Emily nodded, not focused enough to realize Ororo could not see her. “Thanks.”
She could never forget the last encounter she had had with the Hellfire club. Winston reaching for her as he tried to steal her mind away, Sebastian’s slimy suggestions, Emma coming apart as she remembered her initiation into the inner circle. Their faded finery and desperate attempts to regain their former influence was pitiful, but their power was terrifying.
At three in the morning, Emma still didn’t pick up her phone.
When she saw the woman again the next day, standing in line at the coffee shop near Quantico, she took a deep breath and walked up to her, tapping her on the shoulder. She turned around and lowered her sunglasses to give Emily an all too familiar incredulously inquiring look.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Cordelia,” she said, with a sly grin. “Cordelia Frost. Doesn’t my sister talk about me?”
---
Emma still wasn’t picking up her phone.
“Do you believe me now?” Cordelia sipped boredly on her coffee as if she hadn’t just informed Emily that her elder sister had been taken prisoner by the new Hellfire club.
“Why did they take her?”
Cordelia waved her hand vaguely. “Shinobi wanted to deal with her. He was worried she might be his mother because of their similar powers. I told him he was full of shit because she would have been like eleven, and I knew her when she was eleven. Adrienne maybe, but Emma seriously had no game back then. Still he wanted her on our side. I think he forgot that she’s an X-man now, because when he found out she was feeding them information and disrupting his plans, he flipped out and said that she had betrayed the trust of the inner circle.” She rolled her eyes.
Emily wondered if there was something about youngest sisters that made them inherently less mature.
“Are the X-men trying to rescue her?”
Cordelia laughed. “They don’t even know she’s missing. She said she was going to visit you.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because the X-men are assholes. And I heard about you.” She cocked her head to the side. “I wanted to see what kind of woman it would take to turn my big sister.”
“Turn?”
“So you get to rescue her.”
“How am I supposed to…”
Cordelia waved away the issue. “You’re a human, so they’ll underestimate you. This will get you in.” Cordelia produced a card: red and gold printing on black velvet paper. “It's a ticket.” She grinned. “One ride on the formerly great and powerful Emma Frost. Very hard to come by. I’m the White Rook and I still had to blow Roberto for it.”
“They’re selling rides?”
Cordelia smiled like a shark. “Tell me, who wouldn’t offer a thousand favors to hit that? And who hasn’t she gotten on the bad side of? Revenge is sweet, especially when it drops your victim in your lap in restraints and wearing an inhibitor collar.”
Emily crossed her arms and gave the bratty younger sister a look of death. “How do I get her out?”
Cordelia seemed pleased by her show of strength and produced a small capsule. “That’s where this comes in.”
“What is it?”
“There’s no way they could keep Emma there without an inhibitor. When you crack this bud open it will produce a powerful electric pulse that will short out the collar. You just need to keep it under your tongue or behind your teeth, like those cyanide capsules your CIA colleagues wear.”
Emily nodded and took it. She had seen something of a similar design before. “Why are you doing this?”
Cordelia blinked. “Emma’s a bitch and a loser, but she’s my sister. And she seems to have given up being a bad person. I’d like to do the same.” She looked at Emily for a minute, almost smiling. “And I like you. I didn’t expect that. I figured if Emma ever lost her self-respect enough to fall in love, it would be one of those pathetic angsty emo-boys that she could dominate without a second thought. But you… you’re tough shit for a human. I like that.”
---
She should have known something was wrong. Emily had enough experience to know when Emma was planning something stupid. The phone calls would decrease, and she would be quieter, sometimes a bit pathetic when Emily did make contact. Other times she would be self-righteous and the thin line between bitch and asshole would slip. And Emily was always just a little more irritable as well. It felt hormonal, like PMS or getting sick, but there wasn’t usually such a simple rationale for it.
In the last few days before she accosted Cordelia, she had been inexplicably on edge. Every unexpected noise or slight threat would fill her with panic. When challenged, she felt drained and helpless. And without any impetus, she had been mildly aroused.
But today the sick feeling of fear deep in her stomach was entirely her own.
This Hellfire Club looked like any scummy nightclub or strip joint in New York City. The new Hellfire club had really lost the pretensions of grandeur that had made its predecessor interesting. She knocked, carefully guarding her thoughts with a hundred banal worries. It was less obvious than shielding, and it wouldn’t encourage telepaths to pry. (Emma had taught her how, lounging in the tree house one hot afternoon on their first summer in Vermont.)
The man who opened the door bowed deeply. He was dressed in an embroidered jacket, striped knickerbockers, and buckled shoes. That was at least traditional.
“This club is members only,” he said blandly.
Emily straightened up, shoulders loose and expression bored. The four-inch heels were a pain in the neck, but they made it easy to take on the stance of a Hellfire woman. And she was Hellfire. She was a legacy. “I believe,” she said dryly, “that the Lord Imperial has my name on his roles.” Unfortunately this was true. She had inherited her seat through her mother, and Emma had told her not to give it up.
The servant blinked, numbers running across his eyes. A machine? That was new. He stepped back and bowed jerkily, allowing her entrance. “Welcome, Miss Prentiss. You have not visited this branch before. May I offer you a drink?”
“No, thank you.” Emily set her jaw. This part was awkward to say (even more to imagine her mother saying). “Do you have any companions available?”
Is there a particular companion you would like?”
“I was hoping to have Emma,” she said flatly.
“Oh!” The machine looked worried. “Please wait here.”
Emily settled onto one of the velvet couches, carefully arranging herself to keep an eye on the door. The capsule was a distracting lump behind her teeth, but she couldn’t think of it. She leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, and twisting her shoulders toward the entrance. The split in her skirt bared a long expanse of thigh. It was a terribly uncomfortable pose, but it was the right one. Be bored, she told herself. Want sex.
A young man with a shoulder-length cascade of black hair swept into the room. His face was tawny and chiseled. The resemblance between him and Sebastian was marked, but Shinobi Shaw’s mother had clearly passed on some good-looking genes. Unfortunately, his taste in fashion had been set by his father, and the Rococo style velvet jacket, lace collar, and high heeled men’s pumps made Emily want to laugh. He looked at her, cocking his head curiously, his eyes suspicious. Emily didn’t feel any brush against her thoughts, but his mere resemblance to Sebastian made her want to tighten her shields.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever met you before, my dear Ms. Prentiss. But I have heard of your family. It is a long standing line.”
Fabulous. Now Emily had to ignore the suggestion about the sex-lives of her grandparents too. She turned her hand and examined her nails. “I usually frequent the DC establishment,” she said. “But I was in the area…”
There was a flinch and a tightness around Shinobi’s eyes. He only had any power over the New York club, if what Cordelia had said was correct.
“…and I heard you had something quite special on offer.”
“Indeed.” His eyes narrowed. “What makes you think you have the right to request such an elite companion?”
Emily raised an incredulous eyebrow. You’d deny me? Carefully, with a casual flick of her fingers, she extracted the card Cordelia had given her from the bosom of her dress. Shinobi held out his hand and she dropped it into his gloved palm.
He looked at it, his mouth pursing in feminine moue of surprise. He glanced up at her, a surprised admiration in his face. He was clearly wondering what she must have done to get her hands on it. Anything.
“How intriguing.”
---
Emily was led down into the basement of the club, towards the pleasure room. The hallways were long and labrynthine, and she wasn’t certain she could find her way out. The machine servant held the door open for her. Shinobi bowed.
“Please prepare yourself. Your companion awaits. Is there any preference that you have? We have every possibility available. Awake and aware? Aroused or not? I am sure you will have no trouble in getting her to serve you.”
“I just want to fuck her until she cries.” Even knowing they were a blatant lie, the words were much harder to get out than any previous lie had. It took everything she had to keep them from shaking with fury. Emily had been good at this once. She had been able to say anything. She had ordered men killed, had let pretty harsh words of seduction linger on her tongue and poison people’s ears. Why was it so much harder now? (But it was always harder when she cared. The worst lies the ever told were to save someone’s life. And the locks on the door of the pleasure room made her angry. Shinobi’s menu of possibilities made her want to rip his head off with her bare hands.)
Shinobi perked up, his expression curious. “I think we can assist.”
He disappeared down the hall and Emily clenched her fists, wishing she knew what he was thinking. This just might be getting out of her control.
Through the plate glass window of what was really just a glorified locker room, she could see Emma. She breathed in through her nose, restraining herself from flaring up in pointless rage, as she stripped naked. There were cameras. Cordelia had warned her. It had to look good. It had to look Hellfire.
Emma hung from the cuffs, naked, drugged and damaged, the inhibitor collar tight as a choker around her neck. Emily stood at the window and wished she had her gun. No one would make it out of this complex alive.
“Mistress.”
She turned. A boy, eight or nine, stood there, dressed in the Hellfire uniform of silk stockings, lace and velvet. “What?”
“His Majesty said you requested my assistance.”
She stared at him, confused, and didn’t move in time when he reached out and caught her hand. The bolt of lightning from him hit her in the gut, and for a moment she knew she had been caught, been trapped. She fought to keep standing, to not double over.
Then the boy smiled and slipped out of the room.
The pain was gone, but something else was there. Emily looked down at herself and nearly puked. “What-” She caught the words before they slipped out. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. As if she couldn’t fuck Emma to tears without a fucking cock.
The door to the pleasure room opened, spilling pink, rose-scented fog into the changing room. As she breathed in, the cock stiffened.
The circuit breaker sat lumplike under her tongue. In and out, stick to the plan, don’t worry about this.
Her stomach still swam, but she couldn’t seem unsettled or surprised. She forced a smile and stepped out into the pleasure room.
Emma twitched, looking up, squinting through the rose-tinted fog, and tilting her head slightly as she tried to examine her. It seemed like her eyes weren’t focusing well. Was she concussed? Was she hurt? Emily wished she knew if she was the first to get in, or if she had already been abused.
“Emily?”
“Don’t address me. You don’t have the right to address me.”
A lazy half smile crossed Emma’s face. “God,” she drawled. “You’re fucking hot.”
“Like this?” Emily looked down at her strange body, wondering what made a man’s body attractive.
“You talk so dirty to me, darling. Stab my eyes out and you’re still fucking hot. You’re always hot.”
“Emma…”
Emma’s eyes dropped away from her face and lingered at waist level. She licked her lips. “Mmm, come closer.”
“Emma?”
“I want it,” she snapped.
Emily slapped her. Her topping from the bottom wasn’t going to make this convincing. Her hand barely brushed Emma’s cheek, and she faked the crack against her own leg. She caught her hair and tugged her head back. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Oh God, fuck me. Please fuck me.”
“You’re begging for it?”
Emma thrashed as best she could, bound as she was. “You don’t understand. This room is pumped full of Aphrodisiacs. I’ve been here for days. I need sex. I want your fucking cock in me!”
“Oh god.” Emily’s body had already started to react. And it ached. She shoved Emma’s head forward. “Earn it.”
Emma grinned up at her and tipped her head back, pressing the tip of her tongue against her top lip, then flickering it out until it brushed against the underside of Emily’s cock. She tugged futilely at the bonds holding her hands up.
“Give it to me.”
“Take it with your mouth. I know you can. You’re good with your mouth.”
“Not as good as you.” Pushing up on her ankles she struggled to get high enough to reach the tip, then caught it, pushing it down with her tongue and moving in. Her tongue pulled back and she caught the head in her mouth. She dropped back to her knees, holding it between her lips and breathing through her nose. Then she hummed.
Emily’s knees nearly buckled. She caught the back of Emma’s head and jerked it in. Emma let out a slight grunt and Emily felt it go down her throat. The soft squish of the velum gave way to the hard muscles of her larynx. Her balls ached like they were going to burst, and she felt precum leak out. She jerked out, a thin splatter of white streaking Emma’s face.
“Fuck me now?”
Emily groaned and shoved her, the chains rattling as they loosed, letting Emma fall backwards onto the cold tile floor. Emma hiked up her legs and spread them apart.
“Come on, I want you.”
Emily fell over her, bending in to kiss her neck, right above the inhibitor collar. With her tongue, she pressed the bug right against it. There was a pop that stung with electricity, and then she could feel Emma in her head, Emma laughing and burning with desire. Her hands freed, Emma reached down and grabbed her cock and pulled it right into her. Without thinking, Emily pushed forward, slamming their hips together and sinking all the way in.
The deep wet heat closed around her cock, and Emily stiffened. “Holy…”
Emma rocked against her. “Get with the fucking, before you blow it.”
Emily drew out and almost groaned with the excess of sensation, hot wet walls pressing into sensitive flesh. It was too much, but it wasn’t enough at the same time, and she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t even think of stopping.
Emma’s fist closed around the base of her cock, tight, and closing off the pressure. Everything throbbed and ached, but she could fuck now, hips jerking like a teenager.
Nothing felt like this. Emma’s back arched, and she made sounds Emily was intimately familiar with. “Oh, fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
She came, thighs gripping Emily’s hips like she was riding a horse. Her hand released and snuck around to shove two fingers into Emily’s ass, and Emily came like an explosion, coming and coming, until finally all the pressure had drained away, and her gut felt empty.
She sobbed weakly against Emma’s chest. Inside her head she felt the same way as if Emma was stroking her hair.
Slowly, weakly, she moved, pulling out, and wincing at the cum that spilt out after her. She touched Emma’s wrists, but the cuffs were gone, leaving only raw skin and ligature bruising. Emma watched her, eyes sharp, grin lazy.
The boy came in and bowed. He touched her and her body changed back. She was ready for the pain this time. He bowed again and left. Emily could see that odd glazed look in his eyes that meant his actions were not performed by his own will.
She reached out and offered Emma a hand, helping her to her feet. They ducked into the antechamber and dressed quickly. Emma’s eyes lingered on the four-inch heels and long slit in the dress. She pulled on a tight dress, white as expected, stepped into low boots and offered Emily her arm. “Now we walk out.”
They stepped out of the door and were about forty yards down the street when the building blew up. Then they ran until they collapsed on the grass in Central Park.
The collar had left red marks on Emma’s neck, and Emily’s fingers drifted over them.
“I can’t believe you saved me from there,” Emma said, and reaching out to brush a lock of hair out of Emily’s face.
Emily wondered if she would ever tell her what had happened that had got her into that predicament. Would she open up about that hollowness Emily had felt inside her, or just push it down and smile to cover it up? Her touch was teasing, the pad of her thumb running over still swollen lips, and Emily flushed, ducking her head to take her gaze away. “I can’t believe I fucked you like that.”
Emma grinned. “What? It’s not like we haven’t had role play sex before.”
“It wasn’t exactly role play sex.” Emily didn’t know what it was. It had felt half like role play, and half like a mission where one wrong move meant their death, and half like, well, like sex with Emma - always a little more insane than she expected.”
“It was good though. For your first time, your cocksmanship was very impressive.”
“Oh God.”
Emma cupped her cheek. “No shame,” she whispered. “You can’t survive the Hellfire Club if you are filled with shame.” She dipped her head and kissed her, gently and as sweetly as possible.
* * *
Emma threw up again. She staggered down to the med lab.
“You look awful!” exclaimed Hank.
Emma covered her eyes, pressing her thumb and forefinger into her temple. “No, shit, Sherlock,” she muttered to herself. “I’m sick.”
It took Hank a half an hour to figure it out. In retrospect it was the first thing he should have checked.
“Emma… you’re pregnant.”
“What!” She stared at him in disbelief. “But I haven’t slept with a man since… oh. Oh shit.”
* * *
Emma didn’t want this kid. She didn’t want to be pregnant and she didn’t want to call Emily. Emily had Deirdre to worry about, and Jubilee and her job. Emma couldn’t just run away and let Emily take care of everything for her.
It was Jubilee who found out first.
“Holy shit! You’re spawning again?”
“Shut up and let me speak to Emily.”
Apparently Jubilee had not introduced the subject well. “How the fuck did this happen, Emma? And don’t tell me its mine.”
“It’s yours.”
“That’s not fucking possible!”
“Recall the incident, say two months ago? When you rescued me from an uncertain fate?”
“Oh… shit.”
“Precisely.”
“Isn’t that rose fog stuff like a spermicide airfreshener?”
“They have condoms! It’s not like it’s barbaric!”
“I didn’t know I was going to need them!”
“You didn’t? I didn’t know you were going to blow your fucking load in me!”
“You wanted me to pull out? You really expected that to work?”
Emma wrinkled her nose. “I was impaired. And kidnapped. It’s the non-impaired person’s responsibility to organize birth control.”
“It wasn’t an experience that I was all that ready for.” Emily rolled her eyes. “And seriously? Why aren’t you on the pill or something? Surely…”
“I’m not on anything because I’ve only been fucking you for the past five years!”
Emily was stunned silent. “Really?”
“Yes, really! What the fuck do you want? A blood test?”
Emily swallowed. It was bewildering, really. It’s not like she had assumed Emma was sleeping around, but she hadn’t thought… to stop taking birth control, to have the packet of pills and choose to not take it, or to have a longer term something run out and decide not to get it again, that was a big deal. Emily hadn’t thought she was worth that big a deal. “Sorry. I just needed a minute to regroup. Finding out that you’re pregnant with my baby and that we’ve been in something resembling a committed relationship for the past five years is a bit much to take in all at once.”
“You didn’t know?” Emma heard the phone case crack under her grip. “Who have you been fucking?”
“No one!”
“Not for lack of trying.”
“Emma! Turn the bitch off! Other things to worry about!”
“I want to get rid of it.”
Dead silence.
“I don’t want this child. I don’t want to carry her. I don’t want to bear her. I don’t want to keep her.”
There was a long pause.
“What? Scared you won’t be sexy anymore with stretch marks?”
Emma held the phone away from her ear and stared at it. She had never heard such a nasty tone in Emily’s voice. She took a breath. “How about we both drop the bitch and try to communicate like adults, okay?”
There was silence on the other end and then she heard Emily sigh. “It’s your body, Emma, your sacrifice. I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t have the right.”
“I don’t know what to do! That’s why I’m calling. I need help. And all of Hank’s inane chatter about miracles, when he has no idea that you stuck your cock in me and came, is not solving the problem.”
“I had an abortion when I was fifteen.”
Emma dropped the phone. She cursed, scrambling on the floor for it. These were the things you were supposed to know about your lover, at least if you were a telepath. Why did Emily have to have such good shields?
“It was the right decision, totally. I have no regrets. But I was fifteen and had been… been stupid. This is different. We’re adults. We are disgustingly rich. We have another child.”
It was the ‘we’ that burnt.
“I can’t stay with you. I can’t promise not to leave. I can’t promise that there isn’t anything more important to me than you. And I can’t… I can’t do this alone.” Emma blamed the hormones for the tears that came.
The pause was a little too long to assume that what came next was the truth, but Emily’s voice was soft. “I won’t make you stay.”
Emma cried and wished so hard that it would stop. “Fuck you,” she said.
“Emma…”
“I mean it! Fuck you, goddamnit!”
“Come home,” Emily said, her voice rough like it was breaking. “Come home and we can try.”
* * *
Pairing: Emma/Emily
Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds
Rating: NC-17 (Warnings TG sex - question to self: why is this bit explicit and the nonTG stuff not?)
Universe: Fake Empire
Apologies: Some of this might seem familiar, from those Citrus Taste prompts ages ago, but a little edited. And it continues on, somewhat.
Emily had been seeing her around, this woman, tall and narrow, with dark hair and a sharp chin, who looked unnervingly like Didi. The first time she saw her on the metro, her long straight hair brushing the hips of her navy suit. Her make-up was just a little too strong for a normal businesswoman, and when she turned Emily could see the forest of metal in her ears.
But it was the way she stood that distracted Emily into missing her stop. It sent an icy shiver down her spine, like the feeling prey gets when it spots a predator.
It was Hellfire, pure and simple.
(Emma had stopped doing it all the time. She only fell into the stance when she felt threatened or was around people she didn’t like. But after seeing her walk into the Hellfire Club like she owned it, like everyone in the room had better drop to their knees and offer to lick her boots, it wasn’t a stance Emily was going to forget.)
Emily saw the woman again when she stopped in at the Indian restaurant to pick up dinner. (Didi had begged for chicken korma as usual. Emily always ended up bringing the leftovers to work for lunch, and she could feel her arteries clang every time. She had finally put an end to Jubilee’s regular order of paneer pakoras. Jubilee and Didi might be able to subsist on a diet of cream sauce and deep fried cheese, but two meals of that and Emily’s immune system took a nosedive.) She was sitting at a table by the door, a barely touched masala dosa in front of her, and she was close enough that Emily could see her eyes.
They were blue. Emma’s eyes.
When she got home she dropped the sack of food on the table and headed into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Jubilee and Didi, sprawled on the living room rug with paints and glitter barely noticed her. She took out her phone and hit Emma’s speed-dial.
It rang, a bright hope in lonesome silence, six times, and went to voicemail.
She checked her watch. Maybe Emma was running an after school activity? A mission? Her thumb hovered over the #5. Finally she hit it.
“…Hello?” came a tired sounding voice. Emily glanced at her watch. It was almost 6pm.
“Ro? Did I wake you?”
“It’s no trouble. I should have been getting up soon either way.”
“Where… are you?”
“Australia, in fact.”
“Oh.” Emily expelled air. “You won’t be able to tell me why Emma’s not answering her phone then.”
“I’m sorry. Is there something wrong?”
“No, nothing. I just wanted to ask her about… about something. Have you heard anything from the Hellfire club lately?”
She could picture Ororo’s surprise at the question. “No, I believe they have been quiet as of late.”
Emily nodded, not focused enough to realize Ororo could not see her. “Thanks.”
She could never forget the last encounter she had had with the Hellfire club. Winston reaching for her as he tried to steal her mind away, Sebastian’s slimy suggestions, Emma coming apart as she remembered her initiation into the inner circle. Their faded finery and desperate attempts to regain their former influence was pitiful, but their power was terrifying.
At three in the morning, Emma still didn’t pick up her phone.
When she saw the woman again the next day, standing in line at the coffee shop near Quantico, she took a deep breath and walked up to her, tapping her on the shoulder. She turned around and lowered her sunglasses to give Emily an all too familiar incredulously inquiring look.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Cordelia,” she said, with a sly grin. “Cordelia Frost. Doesn’t my sister talk about me?”
---
Emma still wasn’t picking up her phone.
“Do you believe me now?” Cordelia sipped boredly on her coffee as if she hadn’t just informed Emily that her elder sister had been taken prisoner by the new Hellfire club.
“Why did they take her?”
Cordelia waved her hand vaguely. “Shinobi wanted to deal with her. He was worried she might be his mother because of their similar powers. I told him he was full of shit because she would have been like eleven, and I knew her when she was eleven. Adrienne maybe, but Emma seriously had no game back then. Still he wanted her on our side. I think he forgot that she’s an X-man now, because when he found out she was feeding them information and disrupting his plans, he flipped out and said that she had betrayed the trust of the inner circle.” She rolled her eyes.
Emily wondered if there was something about youngest sisters that made them inherently less mature.
“Are the X-men trying to rescue her?”
Cordelia laughed. “They don’t even know she’s missing. She said she was going to visit you.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because the X-men are assholes. And I heard about you.” She cocked her head to the side. “I wanted to see what kind of woman it would take to turn my big sister.”
“Turn?”
“So you get to rescue her.”
“How am I supposed to…”
Cordelia waved away the issue. “You’re a human, so they’ll underestimate you. This will get you in.” Cordelia produced a card: red and gold printing on black velvet paper. “It's a ticket.” She grinned. “One ride on the formerly great and powerful Emma Frost. Very hard to come by. I’m the White Rook and I still had to blow Roberto for it.”
“They’re selling rides?”
Cordelia smiled like a shark. “Tell me, who wouldn’t offer a thousand favors to hit that? And who hasn’t she gotten on the bad side of? Revenge is sweet, especially when it drops your victim in your lap in restraints and wearing an inhibitor collar.”
Emily crossed her arms and gave the bratty younger sister a look of death. “How do I get her out?”
Cordelia seemed pleased by her show of strength and produced a small capsule. “That’s where this comes in.”
“What is it?”
“There’s no way they could keep Emma there without an inhibitor. When you crack this bud open it will produce a powerful electric pulse that will short out the collar. You just need to keep it under your tongue or behind your teeth, like those cyanide capsules your CIA colleagues wear.”
Emily nodded and took it. She had seen something of a similar design before. “Why are you doing this?”
Cordelia blinked. “Emma’s a bitch and a loser, but she’s my sister. And she seems to have given up being a bad person. I’d like to do the same.” She looked at Emily for a minute, almost smiling. “And I like you. I didn’t expect that. I figured if Emma ever lost her self-respect enough to fall in love, it would be one of those pathetic angsty emo-boys that she could dominate without a second thought. But you… you’re tough shit for a human. I like that.”
---
She should have known something was wrong. Emily had enough experience to know when Emma was planning something stupid. The phone calls would decrease, and she would be quieter, sometimes a bit pathetic when Emily did make contact. Other times she would be self-righteous and the thin line between bitch and asshole would slip. And Emily was always just a little more irritable as well. It felt hormonal, like PMS or getting sick, but there wasn’t usually such a simple rationale for it.
In the last few days before she accosted Cordelia, she had been inexplicably on edge. Every unexpected noise or slight threat would fill her with panic. When challenged, she felt drained and helpless. And without any impetus, she had been mildly aroused.
But today the sick feeling of fear deep in her stomach was entirely her own.
This Hellfire Club looked like any scummy nightclub or strip joint in New York City. The new Hellfire club had really lost the pretensions of grandeur that had made its predecessor interesting. She knocked, carefully guarding her thoughts with a hundred banal worries. It was less obvious than shielding, and it wouldn’t encourage telepaths to pry. (Emma had taught her how, lounging in the tree house one hot afternoon on their first summer in Vermont.)
The man who opened the door bowed deeply. He was dressed in an embroidered jacket, striped knickerbockers, and buckled shoes. That was at least traditional.
“This club is members only,” he said blandly.
Emily straightened up, shoulders loose and expression bored. The four-inch heels were a pain in the neck, but they made it easy to take on the stance of a Hellfire woman. And she was Hellfire. She was a legacy. “I believe,” she said dryly, “that the Lord Imperial has my name on his roles.” Unfortunately this was true. She had inherited her seat through her mother, and Emma had told her not to give it up.
The servant blinked, numbers running across his eyes. A machine? That was new. He stepped back and bowed jerkily, allowing her entrance. “Welcome, Miss Prentiss. You have not visited this branch before. May I offer you a drink?”
“No, thank you.” Emily set her jaw. This part was awkward to say (even more to imagine her mother saying). “Do you have any companions available?”
Is there a particular companion you would like?”
“I was hoping to have Emma,” she said flatly.
“Oh!” The machine looked worried. “Please wait here.”
Emily settled onto one of the velvet couches, carefully arranging herself to keep an eye on the door. The capsule was a distracting lump behind her teeth, but she couldn’t think of it. She leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, and twisting her shoulders toward the entrance. The split in her skirt bared a long expanse of thigh. It was a terribly uncomfortable pose, but it was the right one. Be bored, she told herself. Want sex.
A young man with a shoulder-length cascade of black hair swept into the room. His face was tawny and chiseled. The resemblance between him and Sebastian was marked, but Shinobi Shaw’s mother had clearly passed on some good-looking genes. Unfortunately, his taste in fashion had been set by his father, and the Rococo style velvet jacket, lace collar, and high heeled men’s pumps made Emily want to laugh. He looked at her, cocking his head curiously, his eyes suspicious. Emily didn’t feel any brush against her thoughts, but his mere resemblance to Sebastian made her want to tighten her shields.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever met you before, my dear Ms. Prentiss. But I have heard of your family. It is a long standing line.”
Fabulous. Now Emily had to ignore the suggestion about the sex-lives of her grandparents too. She turned her hand and examined her nails. “I usually frequent the DC establishment,” she said. “But I was in the area…”
There was a flinch and a tightness around Shinobi’s eyes. He only had any power over the New York club, if what Cordelia had said was correct.
“…and I heard you had something quite special on offer.”
“Indeed.” His eyes narrowed. “What makes you think you have the right to request such an elite companion?”
Emily raised an incredulous eyebrow. You’d deny me? Carefully, with a casual flick of her fingers, she extracted the card Cordelia had given her from the bosom of her dress. Shinobi held out his hand and she dropped it into his gloved palm.
He looked at it, his mouth pursing in feminine moue of surprise. He glanced up at her, a surprised admiration in his face. He was clearly wondering what she must have done to get her hands on it. Anything.
“How intriguing.”
---
Emily was led down into the basement of the club, towards the pleasure room. The hallways were long and labrynthine, and she wasn’t certain she could find her way out. The machine servant held the door open for her. Shinobi bowed.
“Please prepare yourself. Your companion awaits. Is there any preference that you have? We have every possibility available. Awake and aware? Aroused or not? I am sure you will have no trouble in getting her to serve you.”
“I just want to fuck her until she cries.” Even knowing they were a blatant lie, the words were much harder to get out than any previous lie had. It took everything she had to keep them from shaking with fury. Emily had been good at this once. She had been able to say anything. She had ordered men killed, had let pretty harsh words of seduction linger on her tongue and poison people’s ears. Why was it so much harder now? (But it was always harder when she cared. The worst lies the ever told were to save someone’s life. And the locks on the door of the pleasure room made her angry. Shinobi’s menu of possibilities made her want to rip his head off with her bare hands.)
Shinobi perked up, his expression curious. “I think we can assist.”
He disappeared down the hall and Emily clenched her fists, wishing she knew what he was thinking. This just might be getting out of her control.
Through the plate glass window of what was really just a glorified locker room, she could see Emma. She breathed in through her nose, restraining herself from flaring up in pointless rage, as she stripped naked. There were cameras. Cordelia had warned her. It had to look good. It had to look Hellfire.
Emma hung from the cuffs, naked, drugged and damaged, the inhibitor collar tight as a choker around her neck. Emily stood at the window and wished she had her gun. No one would make it out of this complex alive.
“Mistress.”
She turned. A boy, eight or nine, stood there, dressed in the Hellfire uniform of silk stockings, lace and velvet. “What?”
“His Majesty said you requested my assistance.”
She stared at him, confused, and didn’t move in time when he reached out and caught her hand. The bolt of lightning from him hit her in the gut, and for a moment she knew she had been caught, been trapped. She fought to keep standing, to not double over.
Then the boy smiled and slipped out of the room.
The pain was gone, but something else was there. Emily looked down at herself and nearly puked. “What-” She caught the words before they slipped out. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. As if she couldn’t fuck Emma to tears without a fucking cock.
The door to the pleasure room opened, spilling pink, rose-scented fog into the changing room. As she breathed in, the cock stiffened.
The circuit breaker sat lumplike under her tongue. In and out, stick to the plan, don’t worry about this.
Her stomach still swam, but she couldn’t seem unsettled or surprised. She forced a smile and stepped out into the pleasure room.
Emma twitched, looking up, squinting through the rose-tinted fog, and tilting her head slightly as she tried to examine her. It seemed like her eyes weren’t focusing well. Was she concussed? Was she hurt? Emily wished she knew if she was the first to get in, or if she had already been abused.
“Emily?”
“Don’t address me. You don’t have the right to address me.”
A lazy half smile crossed Emma’s face. “God,” she drawled. “You’re fucking hot.”
“Like this?” Emily looked down at her strange body, wondering what made a man’s body attractive.
“You talk so dirty to me, darling. Stab my eyes out and you’re still fucking hot. You’re always hot.”
“Emma…”
Emma’s eyes dropped away from her face and lingered at waist level. She licked her lips. “Mmm, come closer.”
“Emma?”
“I want it,” she snapped.
Emily slapped her. Her topping from the bottom wasn’t going to make this convincing. Her hand barely brushed Emma’s cheek, and she faked the crack against her own leg. She caught her hair and tugged her head back. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Oh God, fuck me. Please fuck me.”
“You’re begging for it?”
Emma thrashed as best she could, bound as she was. “You don’t understand. This room is pumped full of Aphrodisiacs. I’ve been here for days. I need sex. I want your fucking cock in me!”
“Oh god.” Emily’s body had already started to react. And it ached. She shoved Emma’s head forward. “Earn it.”
Emma grinned up at her and tipped her head back, pressing the tip of her tongue against her top lip, then flickering it out until it brushed against the underside of Emily’s cock. She tugged futilely at the bonds holding her hands up.
“Give it to me.”
“Take it with your mouth. I know you can. You’re good with your mouth.”
“Not as good as you.” Pushing up on her ankles she struggled to get high enough to reach the tip, then caught it, pushing it down with her tongue and moving in. Her tongue pulled back and she caught the head in her mouth. She dropped back to her knees, holding it between her lips and breathing through her nose. Then she hummed.
Emily’s knees nearly buckled. She caught the back of Emma’s head and jerked it in. Emma let out a slight grunt and Emily felt it go down her throat. The soft squish of the velum gave way to the hard muscles of her larynx. Her balls ached like they were going to burst, and she felt precum leak out. She jerked out, a thin splatter of white streaking Emma’s face.
“Fuck me now?”
Emily groaned and shoved her, the chains rattling as they loosed, letting Emma fall backwards onto the cold tile floor. Emma hiked up her legs and spread them apart.
“Come on, I want you.”
Emily fell over her, bending in to kiss her neck, right above the inhibitor collar. With her tongue, she pressed the bug right against it. There was a pop that stung with electricity, and then she could feel Emma in her head, Emma laughing and burning with desire. Her hands freed, Emma reached down and grabbed her cock and pulled it right into her. Without thinking, Emily pushed forward, slamming their hips together and sinking all the way in.
The deep wet heat closed around her cock, and Emily stiffened. “Holy…”
Emma rocked against her. “Get with the fucking, before you blow it.”
Emily drew out and almost groaned with the excess of sensation, hot wet walls pressing into sensitive flesh. It was too much, but it wasn’t enough at the same time, and she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t even think of stopping.
Emma’s fist closed around the base of her cock, tight, and closing off the pressure. Everything throbbed and ached, but she could fuck now, hips jerking like a teenager.
Nothing felt like this. Emma’s back arched, and she made sounds Emily was intimately familiar with. “Oh, fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
She came, thighs gripping Emily’s hips like she was riding a horse. Her hand released and snuck around to shove two fingers into Emily’s ass, and Emily came like an explosion, coming and coming, until finally all the pressure had drained away, and her gut felt empty.
She sobbed weakly against Emma’s chest. Inside her head she felt the same way as if Emma was stroking her hair.
Slowly, weakly, she moved, pulling out, and wincing at the cum that spilt out after her. She touched Emma’s wrists, but the cuffs were gone, leaving only raw skin and ligature bruising. Emma watched her, eyes sharp, grin lazy.
The boy came in and bowed. He touched her and her body changed back. She was ready for the pain this time. He bowed again and left. Emily could see that odd glazed look in his eyes that meant his actions were not performed by his own will.
She reached out and offered Emma a hand, helping her to her feet. They ducked into the antechamber and dressed quickly. Emma’s eyes lingered on the four-inch heels and long slit in the dress. She pulled on a tight dress, white as expected, stepped into low boots and offered Emily her arm. “Now we walk out.”
They stepped out of the door and were about forty yards down the street when the building blew up. Then they ran until they collapsed on the grass in Central Park.
The collar had left red marks on Emma’s neck, and Emily’s fingers drifted over them.
“I can’t believe you saved me from there,” Emma said, and reaching out to brush a lock of hair out of Emily’s face.
Emily wondered if she would ever tell her what had happened that had got her into that predicament. Would she open up about that hollowness Emily had felt inside her, or just push it down and smile to cover it up? Her touch was teasing, the pad of her thumb running over still swollen lips, and Emily flushed, ducking her head to take her gaze away. “I can’t believe I fucked you like that.”
Emma grinned. “What? It’s not like we haven’t had role play sex before.”
“It wasn’t exactly role play sex.” Emily didn’t know what it was. It had felt half like role play, and half like a mission where one wrong move meant their death, and half like, well, like sex with Emma - always a little more insane than she expected.”
“It was good though. For your first time, your cocksmanship was very impressive.”
“Oh God.”
Emma cupped her cheek. “No shame,” she whispered. “You can’t survive the Hellfire Club if you are filled with shame.” She dipped her head and kissed her, gently and as sweetly as possible.
* * *
Emma threw up again. She staggered down to the med lab.
“You look awful!” exclaimed Hank.
Emma covered her eyes, pressing her thumb and forefinger into her temple. “No, shit, Sherlock,” she muttered to herself. “I’m sick.”
It took Hank a half an hour to figure it out. In retrospect it was the first thing he should have checked.
“Emma… you’re pregnant.”
“What!” She stared at him in disbelief. “But I haven’t slept with a man since… oh. Oh shit.”
* * *
Emma didn’t want this kid. She didn’t want to be pregnant and she didn’t want to call Emily. Emily had Deirdre to worry about, and Jubilee and her job. Emma couldn’t just run away and let Emily take care of everything for her.
It was Jubilee who found out first.
“Holy shit! You’re spawning again?”
“Shut up and let me speak to Emily.”
Apparently Jubilee had not introduced the subject well. “How the fuck did this happen, Emma? And don’t tell me its mine.”
“It’s yours.”
“That’s not fucking possible!”
“Recall the incident, say two months ago? When you rescued me from an uncertain fate?”
“Oh… shit.”
“Precisely.”
“Isn’t that rose fog stuff like a spermicide airfreshener?”
“They have condoms! It’s not like it’s barbaric!”
“I didn’t know I was going to need them!”
“You didn’t? I didn’t know you were going to blow your fucking load in me!”
“You wanted me to pull out? You really expected that to work?”
Emma wrinkled her nose. “I was impaired. And kidnapped. It’s the non-impaired person’s responsibility to organize birth control.”
“It wasn’t an experience that I was all that ready for.” Emily rolled her eyes. “And seriously? Why aren’t you on the pill or something? Surely…”
“I’m not on anything because I’ve only been fucking you for the past five years!”
Emily was stunned silent. “Really?”
“Yes, really! What the fuck do you want? A blood test?”
Emily swallowed. It was bewildering, really. It’s not like she had assumed Emma was sleeping around, but she hadn’t thought… to stop taking birth control, to have the packet of pills and choose to not take it, or to have a longer term something run out and decide not to get it again, that was a big deal. Emily hadn’t thought she was worth that big a deal. “Sorry. I just needed a minute to regroup. Finding out that you’re pregnant with my baby and that we’ve been in something resembling a committed relationship for the past five years is a bit much to take in all at once.”
“You didn’t know?” Emma heard the phone case crack under her grip. “Who have you been fucking?”
“No one!”
“Not for lack of trying.”
“Emma! Turn the bitch off! Other things to worry about!”
“I want to get rid of it.”
Dead silence.
“I don’t want this child. I don’t want to carry her. I don’t want to bear her. I don’t want to keep her.”
There was a long pause.
“What? Scared you won’t be sexy anymore with stretch marks?”
Emma held the phone away from her ear and stared at it. She had never heard such a nasty tone in Emily’s voice. She took a breath. “How about we both drop the bitch and try to communicate like adults, okay?”
There was silence on the other end and then she heard Emily sigh. “It’s your body, Emma, your sacrifice. I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t have the right.”
“I don’t know what to do! That’s why I’m calling. I need help. And all of Hank’s inane chatter about miracles, when he has no idea that you stuck your cock in me and came, is not solving the problem.”
“I had an abortion when I was fifteen.”
Emma dropped the phone. She cursed, scrambling on the floor for it. These were the things you were supposed to know about your lover, at least if you were a telepath. Why did Emily have to have such good shields?
“It was the right decision, totally. I have no regrets. But I was fifteen and had been… been stupid. This is different. We’re adults. We are disgustingly rich. We have another child.”
It was the ‘we’ that burnt.
“I can’t stay with you. I can’t promise not to leave. I can’t promise that there isn’t anything more important to me than you. And I can’t… I can’t do this alone.” Emma blamed the hormones for the tears that came.
The pause was a little too long to assume that what came next was the truth, but Emily’s voice was soft. “I won’t make you stay.”
Emma cried and wished so hard that it would stop. “Fuck you,” she said.
“Emma…”
“I mean it! Fuck you, goddamnit!”
“Come home,” Emily said, her voice rough like it was breaking. “Come home and we can try.”
* * *