Her limbs heavy with sedation, Max squirmed on the metal table, her ankles and wrists restrained in canvas straps with metal buckles. She could hear the steady, slightly quicker beeping of her heart monitor. Just over her pregnant belly, she could see Alec leaning, deflated, against the wall to which he'd been tied. His cuffs were much sturdier than hers, his sedation much heavier – probably because they sensed he would do anything within his power to protect his woman and child. He watched Max as she wiggled her wrists against her restraints. She gently reached the tips of her fingers toward her stomach, surprise tears welling in her eyes. She had put all of her trust in him.

She felt White's presence behind her, his dark, polluted energy somehow seeping into the air around him. Max tried to mentally prepare herself for what was about to happen – but how does one prepare for something like this? The glint of fluorescent light against the gun caught Alec's attention, and he fidgeted with agitation, as if he needed to move but lacked the motor function to do so. She rationalized that the sedatives were doing to him what they'd been doing to her.

She remembered this from her vision. White was standing in the room, right behind her, about to grab her. About to shoot her. In the vision, he appeared disgusted; he felt he was doing righteous work by eliminating the X series, doing the right thing by completing the breeding cult's task. Eliminate 'The One.'

Max whimpered, panic setting in. Her heart sped up, the heart monitor beeping erratically. Her eyes were wide, filled with uncertainty and unshed tears as she imagined what might happen. It would only take a split second for White to pull the trigger and end their lives. She looked to Alec, pleading with him to do something. To do anything. To save them. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

White's sinister glare focused on the mass on the floor next to Alec. "You did me a favor, really."

Alec squinted against his helplessness as if trying to wake from a nightmare. White was going to kill their baby, Max, and Alec – in that order, likely. He clenched his jaw once. Twice.

Smugly, White pointed the gun at Max's stomach. "Now she cannot deliver," he said simply, his finger rubbing against the trigger.

Max took a deep breath and tried to brace herself. She squeezed her eyes shut as a loud shot rang out, and everything turned red.

Chapter 1: Eight Months Ago

Alec and Max huddled around the laptop at the airfield in Cairo, staring at Dix on the screen. He looked even more pale than usual, but was excited to give them some news.

"The block of text on her left clavicle," Dix began, looking to his left, presumably at another monitor. "Logan said Dr. Adair translated that. It means 'She Will Deliver.' Not sure what 'She Will Deliver' means, though."

Max looked down toward her left clavicle but couldn't see the runes from that angle. She jerked her chin up to Alec and caught him trying to make sense of the text in question. Suddenly knowing what it meant did nothing to help them read the language, however. He placed a reassuring hand on her arm.

"Maybe a package of something important? Like a special scroll delivery," Alec tried. After an eighteen hour flight, he was exhausted and in need of some rest. They both were.

Max scoffed. "That's stupid. Sandeman and a thousand-year-old breeding cult couldn't have prophesied I'd get a job at Jam Pony, O Great One."

Alec pressed his lips together, remembering his vision in the temple, remembering her description of the operating room vision. "Maybe you'll deliver a child," he said. It was bittersweet, thinking about that. He didn't want to make their hypothetical child White's target. He didn't want that to be true, but he couldn't deny that the feeling of having a family with Max made him feel calm, right. Made him feel like home.

"Leave it to you to say the awkward thing we're all thinking," Max mumbled.

Dix piped up. "Maybe it's biblical. Something you'll deliver us unto."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." Max folded her arms. "Maybe if we can translate the rest, we'll know what the hell it all means."

"Then you guys better head out. The plane for Athens leaves in fifteen minutes, and I just secured two seats on it."

"Thanks," Max and Alec said in unison.

"Yell at me when you get there. I'll have more information on Dr. Adair."

Max chuckled. Alec looked at her questioningly while closing the laptop. "Holler at me," she informed. "He must have failed Common Verbal Usage."

Alec swung the laptop under his arm, grabbed Max's hand, and headed inside toward the ticket counter. "Hey, Maxie, ever been part of the mile-high club?"

"Ugh, is that Dr. Adair?" Dix asked, his voice sounding disgusted. Max held the laptop and stood next to Alec, who twisted the tiny webcam attachment back to his own face.

"Yep," he said. He pinched the webcam between his fingers and spun it around to show Dix the carnage of the room.

Dr. Adair's office was ground zero for a small bomb, a bomb with a singular purpose: take out Dr. Adair. The room was in disarray – partially burnt furniture, singed papers and books, and thousands of little, bloody pieces of Dr. Adair herself. It was gruesome, and no matter how many training scenarios the X5s experienced with entrails, it didn't seem to get any easier to see.

"And here," Alec said, pointing the camera to the corner. "And here," he continued, pointing the camera to some bookshelves. Alec looked up and used his telescopic vision to zoom into the ceiling. He snapped the camera upward. "And there." Angling the camera back to his face, Alec nodded solemnly. "Looks like someone got to her before we did."

Dix cleared his throat from the other end. "Any idea who did this?"

"Has to be White," Max said.

"He always seems to be one step ahead of us," added Alec. "I mean, technically, we followed him here, so how could he have known who we were coming here to see?"

Max let the question hang in the air as she thought about it. Something was nagging at her subconscious. Mentally, she replayed the conversation between her, Logan and Alec. Alec had been pretty rude in questioning whether or not Logan had vetted the woman before contacting her and giving her sensitive information. And Logan's response was defensive to the point where he was offended that Alec would even suggest he had not done his homework when it came to internet security. If no one else contacted Dr. Adair, then how did White know about her?

"Max, you want me to call Logan and see if he can get us another contact?"

Alec turned to face her. He understood that involving Logan again – at this point – would most likely end in trouble for the older man. He hadn't wanted to be right about the cyber journalist essentially creating a traceable link to the only woman whom might be able to read the text on Max's skin. If Logan put out any more feelers, they would likely reach out and press a target onto their backs. "I don't think that's a good idea," he finally said.

"We do need a new contact," Max argued.

"Then I guess I'm glad I know a guy."

"Of course you do."

"And he's already here," Alec added.

"Guys, one more thing," Dix interjected, trying to find one of them in the webcam's view.

Alec turned the camera to Max and himself. "Yeah."

"There was a tsunami off the coast of Sumatra while you were in the air." At their surprised faces, he continued. "Smaller in nature, most of the damage was done to structures; very little loss of life." He paused for a moment, seeming to carefully consider his next words. "Are all your runes still there?"

"We'll get back to you on that," Alec answered, looking as though now it was Dix who said the awkward thing they were all thinking.

Max and Alec made their way down to the back bedroom of The Anastasia, Lydecker's boat, and set their duffels down on the bed. The room was Spartan, which didn't surprise the transgenics, considering the vessel's owner. There was a small nightstand next to one side of the bed, and behind the head of the bed was a small bookshelf built into the wall.

Max was already smiling at Alec's description of his apparent mental connection to her. "So, what, you can just turn it on and see where I am?"

Alec set the closed laptop on the small nightstand and slipped off his jacket. "I don't know how it works. Or when. Or why. If there is even a limit. I concentrate, and then you sort of come into view."

"So if I were to go outside and take a dive into the water, you'd be able to see me do it?" Max sat on the bed and untied her boot. She slipped it off and craned her neck to see Alec's face.

"Yeah, something like that. I just don't know how to control it." He watched as she untied and removed her other boot. "You wanna test it? You go into the other room and mouth something. A movie quote or something. See if I can read your lips."

Hopping up onto her feet, Max agreed. "I have one already." She disappeared down the hallway and into one of the front rooms.

Alec sat with his back against the headboard and concentrated, closing his eyes. Max came into view behind his lids, and he smiled. She looked like she was tickled by her selection.

She whispered, softer than even a transgenic whisper. "Don't let him know that you know what he thinks you don't know, you know?"

Alec smiled. "Sneakers? You know that movie," he asked in his normal volume, knowing she could hear him.

"It was a funny part," Max called loudly from the other room.

"Alright. Gimme another."

The visage of Max unzipped her jacket and removed it. "Cellar door."

"Donnie Darko," he answered. He was surprised that she would know anything about that movie. "When'd you see that?"

"Am I trying to stump you?" she called from the other room. "You want me to make it hard?"

Her innuendo broke his concentration completely and he opened his eyes, standing up from the bed and taking the two strides necessary to make it to the foot of the bed. Within five seconds, she was standing before him, lifting her shirt up over her head.

"I can make it hard," she promised, squeezing heavy-lidded eyes at him. She unbuttoned her jeans and slid the zipper down slowly.

Alec's eyes were glued to her hands and then her skin, and then her legs, as more and more of her skin, sprinkled with the runes, became visible to him. His mouth watered, remembering the taste of her, the way she inadvertently pulled his hair so hard he saw white behind his lids, the way her legs tightened around his neck blissfully, painfully. He felt himself harden.

She pressed her body against Alec's and took a single, nervous breath. Alec's hungry stare pulled her mouth open at the thought of being devoured, and he surged forward to start the kiss as deep as he could get, their tongues sliding languidly over each other's.

Fingering the hem of his shirt, Max broke the kiss to pull it up over his head before moving down to the button on his jeans. He helped her divest him of his pants, his erection springing out and making a tent of his boxers, and returned to her demanding mouth.

Alec slid his hands up her back and masterfully unhooked her bra. He pulled the straps forward and she let the garment fall to the floor. And suddenly, there she was, bared before him. He paused their ministrations to stare into her eyes. This woman, so undeniably intelligent, so unwaveringly loyal and good and gorgeous, stood nearly naked, brave and coy under his careful eye.

Max pulled at his arm and sat down on the bed, backing herself up to lay her head on the pillow and guide him on top of her.

On his elbow, his other hand cupping the back of her neck, he kissed her gingerly, sensually. He brought his hand forward, rubbing down her chest, up over the crest of her breast, stopping to rub his thumb against her hardening nipple on a slight detour to her hip.

Sweeping his hand inward, he pressed his fingers against the fabric of her panties at the juncture of her legs. She hummed in approval as he continued to stroke up and down, her breath coming faster and faster, the fabric between her legs getting damper with each press of his fingertips.

Despite the barrier of her underwear, he curved his finger in toward her opening, causing Max to arch her hips up. She was ready and wet, and pushed the hem of her panties down until Alec got the hint. He pulled both of her knees up and Max straightened her legs in front of him. Sliding her panties all the way up her legs until her feet slipped through the holes, Alec tossed the fabric to the side of the bed and watched in awe as she let her straight legs lower into a split, baring her completely naked center to him.

His shaft twitched at the very flexible, very stimulating visual. "Christ, Max, you're gonna kill me."

"Not if you can't get this started," Max whined, raising her calves to his hips. She squeezed her calves against him and tried to push down his boxers.

He looked down at her shins with an amused surprise, backed off the bed and slid the fabric down, Max watching every move. Crawling back onto the bed, he sat back on his ankles and pulled her hips into his lap, her core rubbing against him intimately, smearing her wetness on his length. He could smell her arousal, could see the lust in her eyes, could feel the slick heat of her center as it rubbed against his smooth skin.

His pulse raced as he bent sideways to his duffel and reached a hand inside to pull out a box of condoms. He felt her firm grip stroking him roughly and nearly backed out of reach, trying to keep his wits about him. He returned his stare to Max and held up the box, his lips smirking up on one side. He had promised her days, and he fully intended to collect on that promise.

Max smiled sweetly as he tore open the box and selected a package, then impatiently took it out of his hands, opened the packet, tossed the foil aside, and stretched the condom over him, his dick so hard and ready that he couldn't help the way his eyes rolled back with the sensation, and she couldn't help the pure satisfaction it gave her to know she had caused that rapturous look. Raking her fingers down his chest, slowing only to scrape at his nipples, Max pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

Finally, with his torso pressed against hers, Alec sank himself deep into her heat. He flexed inside of her and Max inhaled sharply, teeth grinding together to take all of him in. He wasn't still much longer - a fact for which Max was grateful, because as soon as he started moving, and as soon as she could feel his ribbed shaft and raised tip pushing against her inner walls, she met every thrust, their movements becoming faster and louder like the rumble of a growing wave, ready to crest and crash her down into blissful oblivion.

"Harder," she growled out at him, because she knew she could take it; she knew he could give her the roughness she desired; she knew that like this, their animal would take over, and that line between pain and ecstasy would disappear like footprints in wet sand.

And because she trusted him, he snapped his hips against hers, giving her everything.