"Right, yes, let's do that so that I'm not giving you more issues," she said softly. "That's the very last thing I want to do, give you troubles." Looking up at him, she smiled and nodded. "All right, you and I will go and do this. We will ensure that I eat properly and hopefully one day I will get to meet Gavriel's mom, and I really hope she likes me." That was a huge fear of Lilly's, that the woman wouldn't like her.
"She will adore you," he said quietly. He pushed off the door and moved toward her. Sliding an arm around her waist, he guided her toward the kitchen. "She will likely grill you intensively, but just remember, she does it because she's a mother. Apparently, some worry about their children and only want what's best for them. Personally, I have no grasp of this concept, but I have seen the phenomenon on occasion."
"I certainly hope that she will," Lilly said with a smile and then shook her head. "No matter how old a child gets, their mother will always worry for them, especially if they are an only child. At least that's what I've gathered over the years. When someone is an only child, they are even more precious, or something like that."
"As I said, I wouldn't know. I will take your word on the matter. Sit." He pointed to a stool at the counter. "Is a sandwich all right? I have some roast beef that I did up the other night. You can have it hot or cold, ladies' choice."
"A sandwich sounds perfect to me. You are totally going to spoil me. You feed me such amazing food, you give me so much. I think that I'm very much going to love being your mate." He was such a contradiction, one she loved.
Shrugging, he smiled slightly. "I don't mind doing such things for you. It gives me something to do outside of the job, besides sharpening my weapons and keeping myself honed to the finely tuned machine that I am."
That had her snickering and she shook her head. "Well, you should always keep your weapons well cared for, but you really should take better care of me, so I approve this way of thinking," Lilly said with a grin. "And you are a very highly tuned machine, one that makes me lick my lips."
Snorting at her words, he dug out the fixings for the sandwich. "You never did give me your preference. Hot or cold sandwich?" he asked, holding up the plate of roast beef. "And what do you want on either option."
"Cold is perfectly fine with me, and the roast beef looks utterly delicious, so I'm all in on it." Lilly's stomach growled at the thought. "So yes please, roast beef, pickle on the side , and some water. No fruit or anything else. Just the sandwich and pickle please."
"Can do. Anything in particular you'd like on the sandwich?" He grabbed a board and knife. He set the beef on the board and began to slice it thin. "Cheese, lettuce, onion, something else maybe. Mayo and mustard, mayo or mustard." He looked to her.
"I think that I will take mustard, no cheese, no onions, maybe a bit of lettuce if you have romaine lettuce?" she asked with a smile. "I much prefer it to anything else at all. I'm not big on onions because I don't like onion breath, and I totally want kisses later, so that's another reason not to have onions, yes?"
"You may have heard, they have this revolutionary invention for such things as onion breath." Artaxias went to the fridge and dug around before returning to the counter and continuing. "It's called toothpaste. And it's even got a complimentary friend that goes with it, mouthwash."
Unable to help herself, Lilly began to laugh. She snorted once or twice as well. "Oh God, that's too funny," she said happily. "I love it. Well, still. I want to be able to kiss you on the fly, should I happen to want to, and not have to run for the bathroom to brush my teeth beforehand, please."
"Excuses, excuses," he muttered. But he did shoot her a crooked grin. Then his attention returned to the sandwich he was putting together. A couple minutes later he handed her the plate and a bottle of water. "Eat up," he ordered before turning away to clean up his mess.
Taking the first bite of the sandwich, she hummed in pure happiness. A sigh escaped her lips and she all but danced in her seat. "So good," she moaned happily and licked her lips. "Have I mentioned to you what an amazing cook you are? If not, let me remedy that. You, my dear man, are an amazing cook and I swear I will gain ten pounds by the end of the month, eating as I do."
"It's a sandwich, Lilly, it's not exactly rocket science, darling. Now, making the perfect duck l'orange, that's rocket science with a splash of magic just for kicks. But a sandwich"-he shook his head-"not so much. I'm glad you're enjoying it though."
"Oh, you are totally making me drool here. You can't talk about food to someone that is soon going to be on a very strict diet, it's cruel," she teased with a grin. "But again, I'm very happy that you know how to cook and are willing to take such good care of me."
"Darling, just because you will be on a strict diet doesn't mean it won't taste amazing. I know what I'm doing. If you hadn't figured that out yet, of course." He shot her a look. "Had you figured that out already, or not?"
"Oh, I have noticed that you are very, very good at what you do. You are truly amazing, Artaxias, and that's why I'm not running full tilt from you right now." She winked at him, and he knew she was teasing with him. "Besides, I need at least a couple of lifetimes to experience all of the foods you have to show me. Feed me."
"I'll always feed you Lil, promise." He wiped down the counter and then, grabbing himself a water, walked to the table to join her. "Tomorrow we will need to head into the office and try and figure out what exactly that tattoo involves. I have Briar going over the ink right now, to see if there's anything particular. Mark in IT is doing a scan of it and picking it apart, symbol by symbol. He's looking at the pattern to see if there's something beyond it. Hopefully we'll be able to look at the pieces and find out what about it sets you off."
"I certainly hope so, because I really dislike being completely outside of myself like that. I never want that again, if you wouldn't mind. I really enjoy being able to make my own conscious decisions, and when we find whoever did this to me"-she looked at him so that he could see the honesty in her eyes-"I want them to pay. Dearly."
"They will. No matter what, they will pay." Reaching over, he took her hand and gave it a squeeze before letting go. "But we need to narrow down what is setting you off. If we can break the tattoo into its basic components and then piece it together until you react, hopefully we will find a clue in it all."
"That sounds like a good idea. At least we know which tattoo it is so we can start from there, breaking it apart and all that fun stuff. We will do whatever it is that we must so that we can get these asshats who think they can get away with killing people while we are around." Or something like that. Yeah!
"Mark should have it broken into components tomorrow. Hopefully we'll also know from Briar how it was put together, all at once or in pieces. And what was used to create it. That ink isn't normal, I've never seen tattoo ink like that."
"So, you are thinking that it's some kind of magically spelled ink from the other side, maybe? But why would they do that? Who could have known that I was coming here? Why create the spell just for me? Or do you think that perhaps there are others out there that would react the same way?" she asked with wide eyes.
"Lilly, take a breath. It may not be for you, or rather, not only for you. There may be others affected by this, and those tattoos are ways of controlling the ones under the spell or suggestion or whatever the hell this is. There are likely others out there with the tattoos. There are likely others out there like you, innocent victims being used by someone to gather information. We need to figure out how you're being controlled, how the suggestion works, and stop it. Once we do that, we can release you from the suggestion, figure out the person or people behind this, and stop them. Getting you, and any others in the same position, justice."
"I look forward to that a great deal. Being released would be wonderful, because I've a whole life to plan out with two men that I care a great deal about in such a short timeframe. I can't very well do that if I have to be here and away from all of the action because of some suggestive tattoos that make me want to call someone."