Defiance: Perfect by Nature

Chapter Four: Give and Take

Chapter Four: Give and Take

It had taken one week for Erin Catherine Morrison’s life to take a nosedive into chaos. This hadn’t been how she had pictured life being when she had been growing up as the second biological daughter of the most powerful man in the world. Actually now that she thought about it, all her problems boiled down to one moment and one moment only; the decision she made to let Max accompany her on a mission Anna had given her. If only she could have stood up and told him no, they might not be in this mess right now.

She had been weak though, and it had been Max who was begging her; she very well couldn’t say no to him when he looked so cute clutching onto her leg. For as long as Erin could remember she had been nursing a massive crush on that airhead of a boy, but somewhere along the line it had turned into something more. She didn’t remember the exact moment she realized she loved him, just that one day she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Max began to dominate her mind and she felt compelled to be near him no matter what. The thing was though, he always seemed to see her as this minor annoyance he was forced to deal with because they were family in a sense.

It hurt Erin to see Max with other woman on a daily basis, but she never had the courage to tell him how she felt. She was too afraid that he would laugh at her or say it was just a silly crush because they had grown up seeing each other every single day. The simple fact of it was that the Immortals no longer had to fall in love with one of their own anymore, so why in the world would Max choose his annoying cousin over every other woman in the world?

Or so she had thought, at least.

After the fiasco in Chicago where they had gotten into a fight with Eric, Max had stood up to his father and claimed all the responsibility for the incident, getting Erin off the hook. When it happened she could barely believe what he was doing. He was not the type of person to own up to his mistakes and yet there he was, making sure Erin didn’t get into any trouble. Only it didn’t have a happy ending, and Max had been stripped of his Immortality for his actions that led to the deaths of many police officers.

That’s when Erin came and stole him away. She knew that when he woke up as a mortal he wouldn’t want to be around his family, so she snuck into his room late at night and teleported him to somewhere he would feel safer. She had actually been expecting him to kick her out of the hotel room and say that he never wanted to see her again either for what had happened. She was sure he would hold her responsible; and who knows, maybe if she had stood up there with him and shared the blame he wouldn’t have lost his powers. But instead he was grateful for what she had done for him and almost begged her to come and visit him as often as possible.

Things were finally starting to look up and she began to notice subtle differences in the man she loved. He was more subdued than he usually was, and he seemed to depend on Erin a lot more than he ever had on anyone else his entire life. He was no longer this free spirit who felt he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. No, losing his powers had almost crushed his will entirely, and she felt bad for him.

That night when she was lying in his bed while he slept, and he put his arm over her stomach, had almost been too much for her. She was well aware of how powerful an Immortals passion could be and thought she could handle it when the time came, but having him draped over her body in the middle of the night was agonizing. It took every little bit of mental strength she had to not just shred his clothes off and take him where he lay. That was the real reason she left then. She didn’t have patrol that night; she just had to get away from him before things got out of control and she would do something he didn’t want.