Marc studied Faith's stony-hearted hatred with a yearning ache in his gut and groin. She was glaring at Gremory with a promise Gremory read right back. A self-satisfied smile swayed Marc's head on his neck. His vicious little kitten was resigned to shredding the big bad demon so her big bad man could stand renegade. Untamed. Her god she idolised him. She didn't understand. Not shiesera. Not their connection. So absorbed with him she felt nothing for the others. That seductive, savage female instinct. Protect ye man, pet.

I do need you.

Marc's eyes trailed down worshiping each solidly realised rise and shallow of her warmed skin. Faith had a selective nastiness in her, capably cold on verge of psychopathy. With him she felt safe and safety flicked the switch for invincibility. She was only little. Stretching her claws with high-pitched, cub-like snarls. Blossoming raw instinct. Fledgling flaws. Oh he'd nurse that. She could commune to him. Be his. His house. Everyone and everything else could go fuck itself. His woman.

Marc snatched her hips tendons rising at the back of his hands. Beneath his thumb-pads the arrow heads of her pelvis felt impossibly fine. Like smashed crystal. A lopsided grin dropped on Marc's face. He could feel Gremory at the back of his mind.

This isn't the time.

Old boy. Forgotten how to please an audience.

Marc dropped her, curving his fingers at the back of Faith's inner thighs. Faith caught his shoulders attention snapping back to his bloodshot gaze. She glanced where paparazzi stood poised grinning at them like a pot of gold camera shutters batting. She glanced at Gremory. What did it look like to everyone? The man of the hour on his knees to a mortal woman. What did it look like to Gremory? Who'd destroyed him to a bastardised devotion.

Faith's eyes widened alarmed as Marc pulled her down to straddle him. His palm bundled hair at the nape of her neck crushing her mouth to his to the serenade of clicking cameras. Faith let out a semi-startled whimper into his lips before he pulled away clamping her tightly at the ribs and raising her higher on her knees. His lips brushed her neck. Faith quit breathing. He'd never kissed her there before. Stubble. Scratched.

Ouch. Teeth.

Faith turned her chin inwards trying to look into his face. His touch down her ribs was kneading, painting a pink trail of budding bruises. Lost, found and checking against that she were solid. Faith's eyelids fluttered rapidly "Marc?"

He could have her now. She'd make the front page. Moment immortalised.

Images of semi-faced, greasy armpited, beer bellied buggars, fists round their cocks at computer screens flashed in Marc's mind and the satyr in him sobered. Instantly he straightened, crushing a bemused Faith to his chest cradling her protectively with a nasty look at the paps. At the circle's north entry point Gremory cocked a golden eyebrow. Marc's responsibility was to all of them and his deferred to an ignorant little girl. Marc cocked an eyebrow back. He'd been his fair a possessive ignorant little man when Gremory had first met him. Deeper down in that immaculately beautiful silhouette, fueling all other chastises spider webbing from its seed, Gremory was excruciating that she had no sexual interest in him.

Marc wasn't a pretty man. He didn't attract pretty girls. So he'd had written in a certain negligent eye within his own pretty girl to soothe his sour self-esteem.

Gremory's voice came venomous into his mind. Will I be acquiring two granddaughters tonight or are you done?

Marc pressed his nose into her hair inhaling, Aye.

Sharing her was devaluing her. For him. She was for him. He didn't need to mount and parade her. Salivating for their treats, celebrity culture junkies' imaginations would magnetise more if the gaps were left unfilled. Demonstrate instead her complete singularity to the whores before. The fuckers weren't worthy of her. He had cameras of his own. Aye she was a woman in their world but he'd demand her that regal caliber of respect of a queen until she embodied it enough to demand it herself.

Marc gave the fallen night a bitter look his fingers working at the back of Faith's neck unconsciously rough. Kid made him more a man. Forgotten decency of a different time. Different family. Different land. Different world. Same, buried, mind.

Marc scooped the hair from the side of her face before pulling her up to her feet with him. Gently, he pushed Faith from his arms and towards Lewis who'd been watching them both eager for things to go sensationally cock-eyed. Lewis wrapped his arms around her waist from behind balancing his chin on her shoulder with a teasing, menacing smirk "Think happy thoughts"