The Sigh Of Things (31)   I am one again. One was always me lunar to your sky, constant at my apogee fixed as a compass point directing where the world might find you in the dark. "Co sie stalo? To nie jest w porzadku! Szukam Stanislaus Cassadine. Tak. Jak dlugo? Nie. Nie." ("What is the matter here? It is not alright! I am looking for Stanislaus Cassadine. Yes. How long? No. No.") "Et ou est Pierre? No. Son frere, Gerard? Dites-lui tout ce que vous voudrez! No? A tout hasard, mon ami. La Main de la Cassadine, peut-etre. Choisissez le chemin que vous preferez." ("And where is Pierre? No. His brother, Gerard? Tell him whatever you like! No? Whatever comes, my friend. The Hand of the Cassadine, perhaps? Choose which road you prefer.") "Signore Samaritano, per favore. Si. Conte Stefan Cassadine. Si. Aldo? Aldo, yes. You wished to speak with me? Yes. I will hold." Stefan sank back into his chair at the return of English to his ear. While not their native tongue, this had become his family's language of choice, and the language that bore his thoughts best to their communicative fruition. Fortunate, indeed, that the Romans had the foresight to create a multi-lingual base of operation. A small blessing brought to the curse of this business. Warsaw and Lyon. He made a note to pass these cities on to Stavros; cities in which the two remaining kin who had failed to respond to his Summoning might be sought. He had done all he could; given them days past the deadline, given them time they did not deserve. Two special circumstances, as he had met and liked both men. Once passed to Stavros, his Hand would take their trail and these Cassadines simply vanish; fade to nothing more than the scribble of signatures on old, unenforceable contracts. Stefan still fought against the waste of this; the very idea of such bootless barbarity. The way it should not be, but was. Yet as bondsman he held no sway, only the duty to submit to custom and move on. On, it seemed, to Rome - where all roads would eventually end. Aldo Samaritano. Argos' braccio destro, his right-hand man. Already he plied for exemptions; special favors for the relatives in Naples and Palermo. An old man and a widow, he insisted, yet they both knew better. Aldo's "old man" stood as padrino to Argos - his godfather. A venerable position rife with strategic power. And the Widow Greco? Second, perhaps only to Helena herself in manipulative expertise. Why, the woman owned the very dirt beneath the streets of her native Sicily and, if his reports were correct, every flat-soled shoe that walked upon it! Stefan understood, at their base, that these were merely the preliminary forays; tests to the mettle of the mold. They must have laughed at the thought of Nikolas decreeing what was sure to be a civilized Deciding. Soft and weak and filled with puerile American ideas involving even-handedness and fair play. They'd come blind to the battle at the last, of that he was certain, and for this he gave his brother his due. Reluctantly. Resistantly. But he gave it nonetheless. As the minutes stretched out through the static of this overseas connection, Stefan found himself aggrieved, yet again, by the need to perform these duties on-site. Here was more time wasted; time he might have used to monitor his e-mail, his faxes, the progress of his agents in the field. Instead, he was chained to a chair in his mother's Grand Dining Hall as caterers served their samples, vintners uncorked their wines for the taste, florists measured and gauged and fussed and Helena - navigating what must be by now an ancient course through the familiar sea of her element - strictly dictated the express symmetrics of an ice sculpture. Every decision made with regard to Stavros' Deciding would require his bondsman's approval; from the greeting of its guests, to the music of its dance, to the final lay of a fork to its cloth. If it weren't flavored with the taste of the blackest of ironies, Stefan would claim this his "death by a thousand cuts." But that allusion, like everything else it seemed, had been reserved for the Prince of the Cassadine. His eye caught the man in the doorway, shifting from one foot to the next, judging with a troubled expression how best to approach his doyenne. Stefan found the fellow's fear appropriate. This would be the fourth time today her dress designer had dared to interrupt with what, at best, might be regarded a 'customer relations' issue. "Mother. Mother." Stefan knocked his head toward the door and Helena turned impatiently. The designer took a foot inside the threshold, but no more. "Madame," he implored, the gravel in his voice meriting a swiftly discreet cough. "Madame, she's at it again." Helena's gaze steeled, empty of tolerance. Her arm shot out, her hand hooking a finger to her minion and gesturing him toward the door. "Strap her down if you must, Louis. I will not be bothered by this again!" "If I may," interjected her son, switching off the phone and laying it on the desk. "A walk around the grounds should solve your problem. I will take her myself." The designer's face lit up with gratitude, his mother's with suspicion. He added, "Unless, of course, you would prefer to contend with the additional bother of your prince's wrath? As I recall, he was quite explicit on the subject of further damage." He held his mother's stare for as long as it took her to remember he was better at biding than she, and saw her resistance fall away. "Retrieve her, Louis, and follow." The minion ran, the designer shadowed and Stefan performed a retiring bow, careful to calm the quickened beat of his heart. She took flight the minute her foot touched the grass, darting across the lawn to the path that wound around the circumference of the hill leading to the top of the cliff. He might have been amused by the minion's consternation - his half-motive stance as he puzzled the priority of quarry - if only she'd taken a different course. If only she were headed toward a different destination. As it was, his pace slowed; his step falling heavier now - cognizant of the pain he was bound to face and bucking against it with a fatalism all too familiar to his soul. Too often had he looked for her in places like this. Greece, the very few times he'd gone back, and on Spoon Island where - simply to torture himself - he'd recreated the scene. It was a relief, in many ways, when the minion finally made his choice and ran on ahead to chase her down. This weary walk was more of a pilgrimage, in truth; more a lone man's journey to the hallowed ground of his damnation. He came around the curve of the bluff in his own good time, yet apparently not soon enough to serve her needs. "What have you done?" he admonished, more than a little surprised to find Louis unconscious at her feet, a large lump rising on the side of his head. Stefan rushed forward to inspect the wound and was gratified to find the man still breathing. He looked up at Laura, who chose this moment to drop the rock from her hands. "Was this necessary? Did he hurt you? Attack you in any way? Tell me you were defending yourself." "Alright," she replied dismissively. "I was defending myself. You can say you saw it. You can say he assaulted me. I don't care." She brushed the dirt from her hands and spun away from him, moving to stand at the edge of the cliff. He wondered if she knew this was the image he'd held in his mind for a score of years or more; her solitary figure positioned at the precipice, arms crossed, her posture boldly defiant; the whole of her body limned by sunlight and a sky full of clouds. Then, suddenly, all the grace notes came into play. There, an indolent lock of hair jostled by the wind. The folds of a cotton skirt switching against her calves. And there, the heartbreaking habit she had of rubbing the back of her left heel with the toe of her right shoe. He fought against the entrancement of this and worked to turn the senseless guard so that he lay flat on his back. Only then did he rise to join her. "Manufacturing trouble will not help us in the end. You only call attention to yourself." "What did you say to her?" "Who? Mother?" "Regret. She's not talking to me anymore. What did you tell her? Did you tell her I'm well?" Stefan fixed his eye to the horizon, scanning the long blue line of the sea where it appeared to drop off the rim of the earth. "I told her nothing. Perhaps she's dismayed by the manner in which you keep ripping apart her dress. Why are you doing that, by the way? What do you hope to achieve?" She twisted her head toward him, her look charged with accusation. "You're just going to let this happen, aren't you? You're going to force us to go through with it." "You can't imagine I have a say in the matter." The distance ate away at his resolve. These few feet between them were harder to bear than the many miles that stretched between Port Charles and Milan. Did she know? It would be worse if she knew. "We are bound to The Deciding, all of us. We have been summoned. Run now and his Hand will hunt us down; you, Helena, myself - even Stavros, so strict is the custom." He looked across and saw the tears pool beneath that obstinate glare, saw her nostrils flare as she drew her rebellious breath, saw her lips break, set, and break again. His arms came slowly open, offering the comfort that was his oldest and most well-received gift. She fell into them easily. "I think of Nikolas," he said as he began to stroke her hair. "Should Stavros succeed he will be safe. Free of all challenge and challengers. How many years did the last Deciding buy? How many more can we purchase for his use? What we do here, we do for him." "It's not that simple, Stefan." Her hand came to her cheek to brush away the trace of a tear. "I believe in you. I do. If Stavros dies I know you will see to our escape. I know you'll take me back to Port Charles. I know you will protect us." And here her head lifted to offer him eyes filled with fear. "But what if he succeeds? He'll be prince again. He'll have the power and the wealth and the allegiance of every Cassadine. No one will be able to stop him then. Not even you." He could resist this. The consummate curve of her brow, her smooth alabaster skin, the delicate line of her nose. He could resist this. The supple fullness of her cheek, the luxurious sweep of her jaw, the shadow a golden tress cast against the sculpture of her ear. He could resist this. The captivating contour of her eye, the flawless arch of its lash, the refractive radiance of its azure blaze. Even coming as they did, sharp to his soul - he could resist this. It was the tremble of her lip at the last - a subtle thing, a softly sentimental thing, that drew him down, that moved his mouth to cover hers, that caused his lips to part and his heart to slip silently, inexorably, through the bitter bond of his kiss. What was reason? Perhaps all he had. The substantial soundness of mind he cultivated, stored and held in reserve for the days that never failed to come. Those desperate days when all the world marched against him. When he stood alone and abandoned; his enemy advancing, no weapon in his hand. It was reason that bore him up. It was reason that sustained him. It was reason that contended, competed and conquered every obstacle in his path. And it was this very reason she siphoned away. He could feel it surge through the transom of his lips; spilling from his tongue to hers as they met at the breach of the kiss. He would have to lose his mind to disinter this old desire. He would have to forget all that had gone before and all that was happening now in order to rob the grave where he'd buried his love - that corpse of an adoration, too filled with pain, passion and pestilence to live inside a sane man, a whole man, the man his life needed him to be. Surely she could feel that. Surely she understood. Yet even as he tried to turn back, to pull himself apart from this course, she continued to tease the threads of his judgment, continued to work them loose with the warm tip of her tongue, continued with those vibrantly restive lips to unravel his increasingly tenuous hold on reality. He couldn't…he didn't…this shouldn't…no… In a blinding flash his restraint was gone. His hand curved around her neck, his fingers splayed against its skin, his thumb thrusting under her chin to knock it up sharply as he took his angle and plunged into the abyss. He fell fast to the madness, to the dark dementia of his lust, untethered by logic; unbound by a single strand of lucid thought. He plundered this kiss, this mouth, this yawning cavity of unspeakable ruin, with such a furious force that he felt her buckle beneath him, fragile, shaking, feigning her fear as if she came like some witless virgin to the violence of his need; as if she were somehow innocent of her effect. Very well. If she wanted to go down he would take her. She cried out as he brought her to ground, her chest heaving, her breath catching in a gasp as he planted a knee between her legs. Towering above her now, he struck one hand flat to the grass and let the other wander boldly over the thin cotton weave of her shirt. She made to rise but he pushed her back dismissively, careless of her will, indifferent to all but the hedonistic charm afforded by this physical inspection. He cupped and stroked and traveled her form with a calculated ease; his touch impassive, his motive merely the tactile reacquaintance of a body he remembered all too well. This was not Regret, not at all a warm invitation of biddable flesh to taste, to embrace, to enter at will. Here beneath him lay a weapon of incomprehensible magnitude; a cudgel to pound him senseless, a lance to unsaddle his intent, a saber to sink into the soft underbelly of his every daring design. It was, as a device, destructive in the extreme. And never, not ever, could he safely forget the cunning behind its use. He turned a knuckle to trace a path to the hollow of her neck, then lifted that hand to the side of her face and ran an errant thumb over her lips. "What do you want, Laura?" he asked as he bent to take another kiss, heedless of the fury in her eye. His tongue was not surprised to meet the barrier of her teeth; her small, petulant resistance. He lifted away with a grim smile. "Tell me no. You have the word. You've used it more than once." Her gaze darted to the side and he knew, without looking, that Louis was rising from his sleep. How he would package it back, this covetous lust, he didn't know. But the moment could not be allowed a witness. Stefan pushed himself off of her and up from the ground, striding over to Helena's minion with ill-tempered purpose. He leaned over the groaning man and slapped him once, then twice to provoke his waking. A fist crushed the collar of the shirt and drew him up to a sitting position. A hand clamped roughly around his arm to drag him to his feet. "You were bested by a halfwit. Shall I refrain from sharing this knowledge with your mistress?" The man glared at him balefully before curtly nodding his head. "You are in debt to me then," Stefan announced as he threw the man back on the old dirt path and marched him down the hill - leaving his amorous opponent no choice but to bend to the task of resheathing her blade. The Sigh Of Things (32)   …she knows as Bonaparte knew when he unrolled the map of Russia, one good choice is never enough. He would come black, like a demon through the roses. Thorned, she was sure. Angry, though the rage would rest easy at his shoulder; an elegant mantle of tempered fury borne with all the grace of a dark, despotic lord. She preferred him so; preferred his collar up, his shorthairs bristling, his rancor peaked to a fine point and the lovely way it pricked to stitch the malice through his words. He would be sharp tonight, keen as a knife fresh-whetted on the stone. The girl would stand no chance against him. The girl would fall where she sat. And this would amuse her. This would entertain her. This would mark the debt of those many shamelessly presumptuous acts paid in full. In order to collect these vengeful winnings, it was extremely important that every card of the dinner dealt right. This garden, its ancient blossoms burgeoning in sensuous apricot, crimson and amethyst hue, would provide the perfect backdrop - a lush encirclement of torpid beauty; a splendor so placid, so still, as to never draw the eye from the game at hand. This glass-topped table, ideally suited to her atmosphere al fresco, measured large enough for three yet not so long or wide it would preclude the gripping of a wrist or the voicing to an ear of a quiet threat. Her careful arrangement of torches would radiate the light required to reveal every feature of a face but never blaze quite brightly enough to construe its strategic intent. A plain meat, a straight-forward wine, an unremarkably satisfactory dessert. Nothing…nothing…would serve as an impediment to his wrath. Or as a source of her victim's salvation. "Good evening, Helena." She waylaid the moment, delivering an unnecessary primp to a napkin before turning to acknowledge the girl. Even then, her attention fell merely to the common feminine inspection. Such a simple cotton dress, modest in its way, from the thin spaghetti straps to the loose flow of folds draping the distance to her knee. A clever color, that jade, to match her eye and enhance the shade gifted her skin by the sun. Yet there was no ornament added; no accessorized jewel or belt or scarf to act as a statement of her mood. The sandals she wore were too flat to the earth to lift her breasts to their proper projection; her arms too bare beyond that silver cuff to offer her movements an ounce of distinction. The style of her hair was too free, too forgiving of its curl to capture even a hint of refinement or the echo of a carefully cultivated taste. She would come to the meal as a peasant to a prince's board - yet perhaps this was the most telling presentation of them all. And though she would not perceive it, would never in a thousand years admit it, Helena did stand a bit taller, did hold herself to a small degree prouder, in her much more polished pearl grey silk. She watched the girl's glance lift with relief to the central garden path and knew without looking that their guest had arrived. A subtle motion of her hand brought the servants forward, one prepared to seat the women and the other holding ready with the wine. Only then did she turn to take in the design of his entrance; to permit herself the flooding infusion of pride and effervescent joy at the sight of her wickedly formidable prince. Dark as night in his evening attire, his hair sharply-coiffed, his short beard trimmed to a tight Mephistophelian edge - he sauntered down the row with a distinct dispassion; nonchalant to the point of indifference toward those waiting to be met. Of a sudden he paused in his progress to inspect the bloom on a blood-red rose, the deepest, most vibrant stain in the bed. He hitched the stem between his fingers, balancing the flower in his palm, and one could see the petals tremble in his hand, quaking beneath that cursory regard. A pair of shears magically appeared to slice the rose from its bush, then were tossed to the dirt at his feet. And it was with this single, substantial treasure that he advanced to the table, putting to a most incendiary doubt for whom his tribute was meant. "I am reminded of your garden verse," he began, lifting his eye to his mother, his voice low and rich with resonance. "Rossetti, I believe. How did it go? To thee I come when the rest is over; a snake was I when thou wast my lover." "I was the fairest snake in Eden," she responded, finishing the note and accepting the blossom from his hand. His gaze still locked to hers, he lifted an arm with a single word. "Regret." The girl proffered her naked fingers and he took them in his grasp, pulling her toward him to elevate the skin to his lips. Even as he kissed this peasant flesh, his look charged true to her own as if to say: I will have what I will have at my leisure. An old song, and not a favorite. Helena removed to her chair and permitted the servant to seat her, laying the flower across the cloth, its bloom languished to the linen. Stavros, waving off assistance, seated Regret himself, then took the master's place between them. "Why am I here?" he inquired, a subtle gesture of his hand calling the wine to be served. "Is it such a hardship to dine with your mother? Are your hours too full, your memories too stale, your heart too cold to sit a quiet evening's meal at her side? I would see you, Stavros. And it seems these days even your family must make an appointment." He waited for the last glass of wine to be poured and lifted his stem in a toast. "To family," he announced, then paused for the moment they drew the drink to their lips. "But wait," he interjected, calling a halt and turning to Regret. "I mark you absent of Cassadine blood. More the lamb, I think, come bleating to the sight of its slaughter. Am I right?" He smiled slyly and threw his glass back, draining the whole in a single swallow. Two fingers pulled a servant forward to see to the matter of refilling it. "You've begun then?" Helena stated, forgoing the formality of the toast and sipping from her glass. Stavros refused to acknowledge her but instead bent his attention to Regret. "My mother refers to my drinking regimen. There are very few precautions one can take in the face of a Cassadine Deciding. Building a tolerance to the spiritual," he teased, lifting his wine to examine its sparkle in the light, "is always a good idea. My father taught me this - a father who, on his worst day, could drink a merchant sailor to the floor and still find the road home to my mother. If, of course, that was his intent." Helena watched the bulk of the second pouring surge into his mouth and hoped the dregs were bitter. Her eye caught the serving girl to send her scurrying for the meal. If the maid were smart she would also see to the opening of an additional case of wine. "On the subject of this Deciding," she remarked, returning her regard to the table. "Our little lamb presumes to pronounce you conflicted. She seems to sense some weakness in the steel of your resolve. Do I have that right, Regret?" This pricked his poise. She could see the astonishment betray itself in the way the glass balanced at his lip, the wrist refusing to cock for a moment; to toss the remainder of the burgundy back over and into his mouth. He recovered nicely, quickly, sufficiently enough, yet she knew she had hit the mark. She watched as he paused, for the first time, to savor the taste of this ripe red wine before sending it down in a swallow. Good. Good. Her game had begun. "You find me conflicted," he declared, setting the stem firmly to the cloth. His fingers came to straighten the silver at his place, his thumb to run the rim of the fine porcelain plate. "Your mother pressed for my impression," said the lost little lamb, her voice peaked with apprehension. "I didn't think she believed me." "And how, may I ask, did this confliction manifest itself?" he prodded, refusing to be moved from the point. Helena watched, enraptured, as the younger woman's wineglass quivered in her hand just before she set it to the table. "There was no one moment, as I recall." "And yet it seems I faltered. To what?" he inquired, all too softly. "Your eye? Your ear? Did the palm of your hand, as it rested on my heart, detect a fault in its beat? Did your tongue, as it fell so deeply down my throat, retrieve the flavor of my fear? What qualm could you scent in the sweat of my desire that would cause you to conclude I came, in any way, resistant to this course? I would know, Regret. Tell me." The girl constricted beneath his gaze, her features freezing, her form compressing as she shrank back into her chair. So tight was her constraint, so taut her trepidation, that when the soup was set before her - the bottom of its bowl clinking to the plate - she startled and struck a grateful glance, as if this bisque had somehow managed to save the day. "Oh, I think not," roared Stavros, launching from his seat to grip the bowl and fling it wide over the roses. A muffled thunk could be heard in the distance, where the pottery fell to rest in the mulch. He snatched the napkin from her lap to wipe the splash from his fingers, then tossed it down to the slate. "Rise, Regret. Or shall I bring you to your feet?" "That will not be necessary." Regret pressed her palms to the arms of the chair and pushed herself up to stand before him; the movement both fluid and surprisingly bold. Her eye met his sparked with defiance, her expression set hard with a rage of her own. Helena sat back with a satisfied smile, content in her delight. "I was asked for my perception and I gave it," spat the girl, her shoulders coming straight with the words. "You know what she holds over my head. The same she holds over yours. If I do not dance the proper puppet's dance, perhaps you could show me your better step." His countenance calmed in the space of a second, his gaze glittering, a malicious curve twisting his lip. "You see how she has been tainted," he observed, taking her chin in his grip and turning to face his mother. Helena watched the girl struggle and Stavros tighten his hold. "This is the work of your second son. How else to explain the woeful weight of the wit and the senseless obsession with carnival tricks? Our dog-faced boy has marked his territory here." His wrist snapped to turn her head and force her attention to his leveling eye. "What could you perceive in me, little one, as accustomed as you are to lifting your skirts for the pleasure of a side show grotesque? How much must you have had to overlook to consummate that attraction? Tell me, what was his lesson? Did he teach you to sit? To lay your body down? To roll it over?" He laughed at the furor in her glare and dropped his hand from her jaw. "Dance for us now, Mistress Marionette. Show us what you've learned." Regret's fingers flew to her neck and she took an unsteady breath. Her look cast first to Helena, then to the man grinning at her side. The shimmer of a tear could be seen in the reflection of the torchlight. "It's true, what you say. This is indeed the Cassadine Family Circus, and you its capering ringmaster. So quick on your feet, so nimble with your quips, so ready to deflect the eye to the next barbaric entertainment. I wonder, does it occur to you that you are dancing enough for the both of us?" She turned from him then, too swiftly though; her thigh smashing hard into the pointed edge of her chair. Helena was pleased to note that her son made no move to assist, even at the sound of such a piquant exclamation of pain. Less pleased was she to see the girl stumble from the garden and her prince start off in pursuit. "Stavros, no. Leave her be. She's not worth the trouble." He spun mid-stride and addressed her sternly. "I don't believe she's been excused from this table. There should be a punishment for that." Helena couldn't help but laugh and lifted her hand to wave him on. "Deliver it as you will. But be quick, my darling," she advised. "Our dinner is getting cold." "As you wish," he replied with a rakish grin, turning to resume the chase. His mother's eye trailed after him fondly; her heart warm with affection; her pleasure knowing no bounds. He appeared in front of her just as she circled the side of the house, a dark form rising like Lucifer himself to block her progress down the path. His face lay deep in shadow, his body a brutish black mass bearing down. Her steps fell fast behind her, one after the next, from slate to grass to dirt, until he'd backed her all the way to the brick. Her shoulders scraped against the mortared wall, the stone cold and hard upon her skin. She could hear the fabric of his dinner jacket rustle as he planted a hand beside her head, hear the chink of his crested ring as it tapped the surface of the brick, hear the catch in his throat as he attempted to slow the rhythm of his breath; trying to recapture the ease for speech. Too impatient, though. He wouldn't wait. "How?" he asked, gruffly sucking at the air. "How did you know?" Regret focused on the faint fire burning in his eyes, barely visible by the light of this moon. "You need her at your side and she needs to be there. It seemed simple enough. I trust there's no danger when she's getting what she wants?" "But…" And now it was wonder that caught his words. His free hand rose to touch her face, two fingers turning to travel south along the precious plane of her cheek. He started suddenly, taking hold of her chin and turning it carefully right to left. "Did I hurt you?" He leaned closer and she saw his concern. "No, Stavros, you didn't hurt me. I hurt myself, actually." Her hand drew down to her thigh and his came to cover it. She let him slip beneath her palm to examine the swell of the bruise through the cloth. He found the inspection inadequate and quickly flipped up the dress to set his hand directly over the wound. She felt his thumb trace its circumference, wincing only when he miscalculated the jagged curve at the bottom edge. He sensed the pain instantly, his troubled eye rising to meet her own. "We are a circus, aren't we? A cruel collection of misfits and freaks. You should run, Regret. Run from us. Flee as fast and as far as you can. There's nothing to hold you here. You could…" The words streamed from his mouth, spilling one after another right up until the very moment her lips came to steal them away - gifting silence to the rest of those terribly tragic thoughts. Her fingers came to the front of his coat and, with a quiet determination, carefully released each button from its sleeve. One arm wound around his waist as the other lifted its hand to clasp his neck and draw him down into the kiss. He resisted at first, and she could feel him weigh the balance of his sorrow against the carnal greed surging up to take its place. He would have struggled longer had she not found the space between his teeth and forced herself inside. As it was, he submitted with a low-throated groan so rich in longing that it melted every sensible intention she might have possessed. No single shred of wisdom impeded her advance into the pure pleasure of his kiss. Her tongue hunted his, tracked its every movement from that mouth to her own and back again. Her bite sank to the swell of his lip and he growled, tossing her off to descend to the feast of fine white flesh at the base of her neck. His hand, still halfway up her leg, curved to the inside of her thigh and began an infuriatingly slow ascent - spending inches by the fraction and sending her to spiral through every stage of her need until her hunger for him became a torment of unendurable proportion. Her knees grew weak beneath her and it took all the strength she had left to refrain from sinking just far enough down to close that distance; to meet that hand and surrender to its every erotic employ. His lips lifted from her throat, his mouth coming to the crest of her ear. "You drive me to distraction," he murmured, his voice ragged with lust. "And you don't have time for this." A surprisingly logical thought. Where she found the presence of mind to express it, she would never know. "For this?" he prompted, sending that hand straight to its aim and causing her to seize in his embrace. "No, we don't have the time." She let out a soft, shuddering sigh as he retreated and set her dress into place. He raised her head on the crook of a finger and waited for her to open her eyes. "I refuse to feed this fire on Helena Cassadine's clock. We will not be rushed, you and I. Not now. Not ever." If words could have a potent, sensual force, those did. "You'll return to her then?" she whispered, dragging herself back from the edge. "I must." He pulled away the hand he'd braced to the wall and stepped back to knock the dirt from its skin. "Tell me, Regret, what would you have done had I failed to see what you intended?" Her brow creased quizzically. "The thought never occurred to me. We both know you come bound to this business. The suggestion that you are in any way conflicted is patently absurd. I was relieved you didn't laugh at the mere mention of the word." Again, that strange, sad light in his eye. "Put some ice to that bruise," he ordered, laying a gentle kiss to her cheek. As he turned to go, she caught him by the sleeve. "Just for the purpose of clarification, your brother is not a side show grotesque." "Perhaps not," he allowed circumspectly. "Yet this evening stands as proof to me that he's a far greater fool than I might ever have imagined." And on the balance of a breath he was gone. The Sigh Of Things (33)   The hunter kills, the prey dies and this is Life's celebratory rite. (I kiss because you have a place for kissing. The place for peace is anywhere you are not.) There were better uses for Paolo's mouth, of this she was certain. That firm frown he wore, thinking it made him look formidable, really just made him look thick; as if it were rare to find two thoughts sharing the same space in that bulky Brazilian brain. His monosyllabic responses, interspersed with his standard collection of grunts, did nothing to refute this notion. In fact, he provided very little proof to alter the impression he was anything more than a highly-developed muscle equipped with a pair of arms, a pair of legs, and a rudimentary level of communicative skill. He barely cleared the bar of sentience and yet, perhaps, he'd come to the conclusion that this was all the Cassadines required. Still, it left one to wonder whether his blunted demeanor was a carefully-constructed professional mask or simply the end result of a life spent in worship at the altar of the bench press. That mouth, though. That mouth intrigued her. So much so she'd decided it was worth the taking, regardless of what else came along for the ride. Sancia didn't waste any time disabusing him of all that senseless machismo dreck. A Latin man would posture until the moon turned blue on the superiority of the male in every field of endeavor. Hard to do when you had him flat to the mat, your forearm crushing his larynx, the price of another ounce of oxygen suddenly negotiable for those two tiny, tantalizing words, I give. Twenty-three contests, twenty-three pins, before he granted her passage as an equal in battle. Stefan found her efforts laudable. Stavros was merely amused. Paolo, having run out of excuses by the twelfth match and pride by the twenty-first, managed to sink himself into a kind of reluctant respect which, if it accomplished nothing else, succeeded at long last in loosening his tongue. "So which finger are you? Or perhaps you are the thumb?" Sancia set her salad down next to his at the far end of the dining room table. She was not surprised to find him sitting alone. They all did, even during the daily luncheon buffet. "Every man is a whole hand," the Brazilian declared peevishly, spearing a tomato with his fork. Already he was tired of the teasing, yet he knew she would never stop. "One is The Hand. Twenty are The Hand. It is all the same. Get me some juice." Sancia watched him slide his empty glass across the cloth between them and ignored it. "Sounds like nineteen hands too many," she observed as she tossed the lettuce in her bowl. "But I am curious how this happens. Do you know you are a Hand from birth or does someone have to tell you? Does your father come and say, 'My son, you are a Cassadine Hand,' or is there a more formal initiation?" "It is a hereditary distinction bestowed on the strongest boy in the family, be he son, nephew or bastard-born. I am having the grapefruit," he added, pointing a finger to his glass. Sancia crunched on a thin slice of carrot and pondered his answer carefully. "But there is a woman. Tessa. How do you explain that?" Paolo huffed and shoveled another forkful of food into his mouth, speaking as he chewed. "This is not for me to explain. The Prince accepts her. It is done." But not to your liking, she determined as she saw him eye that glass again. Sancia questioned whether he could trust the Venetian and, if not, how it would be possible for The Hand to function as a cohesive team. Had this already been tested? "I wonder, were you called to take part in these Summoning punishments?" "Damn it to hell, girl, I need some juice!" he growled, grabbing his tumbler and lifting half out of his chair. "Allow me," she responded sweetly, taking the cup from his hand. "Really, Paolo, all you had to do was ask." His lips pressed tightly together, his brow furling in a fury. Yet as she rose he sank to his seat and turned once again to his meal. He seemed to have calmed by the time she returned to set the juice before him. A tray of juices, actually. Orange, pineapple, grape, tomato - in fact, every juice but one. His face fell in defeat, his throat issuing a noise that sounded suspiciously like a moan. "You're welcome," she replied, slipping back into her place. "So were you a part of the Summoning force, or are you a Hand in reserve? A spare, so to speak." "There is no spare as you say, not so nicely. This is mocking, yes? I understand. The others maybe no. I think you can take one of us. Two, I am thinking, is trouble." Paolo ran his hand over all the glasses and finally selected the pineapple juice. A sip and his mouth contorted with the taste. He looked toward the service bar wistfully. "To answer? Yes. I was in Poland. Not so many places to hide in Poland. It was quick." Sancia left off her taunting at this point, noting Paolo had abandoned his bravado and was becoming more receptive to her questions. "Has the Prince employed you before?" she asked, retrieving her fork and attacking her salad. "Prince Stavros? No. My father, he goes to Greece. I am only a young boy." "Prince Nikolas, then?" "No," he refuted, shaking his head to emphasize the point. "It is said the Count found The Hand unworthy and refused to offer it to the son. For many years we thought ourselves…what do you call it? Ob…ob…?" "Obsolete," Sancia provided. Paolo snapped his fingers and pointed to her with satisfaction. "Yes. Obsolete. It was a very sad time," he admitted, pushing his plate away. "Oh, we had our professions to practice. But this was our destiny. This was our nobility. This was our importance to the world." He let out a grievous sigh, his expression taking on a melancholy cast. "Still, God, He is a very smart man. He knows the truth. He knows Prince Stavros is alive. So He tests us with the waiting. The Hand, it waits very well. And what is our reward? Never, never did we once move to act on the order of a false master. We are pure, belonging only to the true and righteous Prince of the Cassadine. As it has always been. As it must always be." "And so you will belong to Argos, then, if he stands at the end of this Deciding?" "You think he will stand," he responded through a grin. "It is possible," offered Sancia, gently prodding a radish with her fork. Paolo surveyed the room, his eye narrowing for the notice of another before bending forward and lowering his voice. "The blood of this line flows like the Amazon. Strong. Fierce. No poison corrupts it. God speaks through this blood for many hundreds of years. Too many years for The Hand to count. Prince Stavros? He comes as a man blessed by his ancestors with such blood. Also, too, he has been tested. He has victory in Greece. He will have victory here. And I will be at his side. It is an honor I will speak of to my children and my children's children." Sancia refrained from pointing out that Argos, too, had some of that blood running through his veins. "You have children?" she inquired as she watched his bulk fall back into its chair. "No," he replied, closing his eyes and waving the presumption off. "But after, yes. After, I will have many children. Too many children," he amended with a smile. "You have a lover, then? A woman to be your wife?" "As you have a man?" His expression softened, quite nicely she thought, as he teased her with the riposte. "We are warriors now, yes? This is our life." Having made what he perceived to be the obvious point, he turned back to the table and began to examine the other juices. His thick stick of a finger sank into the tomato and lifted to thrust itself through his lips. Another grimace. Still, he took the glass in his hand. "My turn." "Your turn for what?" "For all the little questions. You are coming the night of The Deciding?" "I am coming, yes," she allowed, refusing to look up from her plate. This would be a tricky bit of business, but she could see no reason to keep it from him. "I serve the Count. He would have me there. Quietly." She could detect his predatory instincts engaging in the way he set the glass back down. His restless movements stilled; his muscles tensing, his senses on alert. "And for what purpose are you quiet in your coming?" "Two more eyes. Two more ears. My strength, if he needs it. That is all." "But not at his side, open to be seen." The Brazilian's gaze grew serious, his words falling so low they barely traveled the distance between the chairs. "You would conceal yourself among us, I think, hoping The Hand will cover you, protect you in its way. It will not. Your Count is a fool to believe our use can be divided, even to so small a degree. Come and you will come beyond our grip. Like a fist we will be," he asserted, clenching his own for emphasis. "The Hand will close against you. It will not take you in." Sancia surrendered the pretense of eating and pushed her plate to the side. Her eyes stared straight, lost to a thought that might as well have been pinned to the opposite wall. When she spoke her voice held only the echo of indifference. "I am never taken in, Paolo. From childhood my road has been my own. This can be an advantage. There is a Portuguese expression, I believe. Antes so, que mal acompanhado. Better alone than in bad company? I have not suffered from the absence of companions. I will not suffer now." "You know the sayings of my country," he remarked, his brow arched, his sensuous lips curving into a smile. "Then perhaps you are familiar with another? Debaixo de boa palavra, ahi esta o engano. Beneath fair words…" "A trick is hidden," she completed with a smile of her own. "Perhaps, my friend. Perhaps there is. In the end we are the instruments of Cassadines, yes? Would you expect anything less?" "I would not!" he exclaimed, surprising her with a warm rush of baritone laughter. Sancia's smile widened to a grin as they finally moved past the boundary of their mutual distrust. Their roles were clearer now; their differences marked, their commonalities embraced. And so it was with a more amiable mien that he attended to her here; those hazel eyes sparked with amusement, his face open, his massive girth relaxed into a genuinely friendly, almost hospitable pose. "Only one question more, I think," said Paolo, nodding slyly as she turned to face him. "This," he announced, his hand falling to the brace on her wrist. "Why is it worn? The arm is good. It functions. It has helped you to conquer me many times." Sancia grew quiet for a moment, then crafted her features to reflect an earnest sincerity. "My circuitry must be covered, Paolo. All the wires have a junction there. The junction must be protected." She caught his confusion and offered him a solemn nod. "Surely you knew I was a robot? A machine? How else could I have bested so strong and clever an opponent as yourself?" She watched his gaze jump from her eye to her arm and back again, his mind testing the true possibility of this. His great head angled and advanced to within inches of her own; his scrutiny hard, merciless in its inspection of her face. Then, with a precisely positioned exploratory force, he brought his lips into contact with hers; gently at first, careful with his judgment. And then, yes, with a shade more interest - coaxing her mouth to respond. A lovely little kiss, she decided, as she took it up with satisfaction, more than content to fall into the folly of this distinctly pleasurable experiment. After a moment - too soon, really - he broke away to speak. "You are no machine," he declared, his eyes half-closed, his tone an equal measure of resentment and arousal. "Shhh," she admonished, bringing a finger to his lips and pressing them together judiciously. "That's my secret." Paolo didn't bother to laugh. At this point even he could see a better use for his mouth.