Chapter 8

Wolfgang wouldn't admit it but he was really looking forward to Kat's visit shortly.

She had just called to say that she was close and would soon be at his home, and once they broke the connection he found he was rotating the crystal phone around in his hands and staring at it as he thought about her.

Ever since Dusty's phones started to be the rage it had made his life far easier.

Of course he wished he had access to these phones a long, long, time ago but Dusty wasn't born during the times he really needed them. But as a gift to a friend Dusty gave him one with slightly different features than the ones released to the general populace and that also made him happy that Dusty still considered him a close friend.

And while he also had his men working on reverse engineering these phones, they couldn't break the strange magic used to create them. How Dusty and that other strange mage Lori who worked with him were creating them he had no idea.

The woman Lori Miller was one who Wolfgang kept under constant watch using his spies.

According to everything that was compiled on her she almost seemed to get her massive power overnight, but that was impossible, wasn't it? Well with a Battlemage in the mix the impossible always happened, but she wasn't his wife so that didn't make sense that she would get such a massive benefit from his association.

Wolfgang often toyed with having his men break into Lori and Dusty's homes and search them for any notes on how the two of them did it, but he stopped short at just thinking about that.

Dusty was still a friend, one who trusted him. He wouldn't abuse that trust unless the fate of the world was on the line, and since this was more of curiosity than world saving issue he was content to let it be.

At least for now.

One thing that these things also did was allow him to use the ability to communicate with his men who weren't mages. This allowed them to also get instructions from him as well at a moment's notice.

Before only those who had at least a trace of magic and could join his network could become field agents. Now he was able to expand his network further on who was able to work for him outside of this island home.

But as he looked away from the phone he started smiling again, but this time it wasn't because of gleaning new information that he hadn't known before.

When Suzan asked him to dinner to meet a friend of hers almost ten seasons ago he almost didn't go. Suzan was always trying to fix him up with someone and he resisted all of her previous attempts.

But something in her manner made him accept this invitation with someone new.

Later, before he started out to travel to the dinner with Suzan, he found from his spies that Dusty wasn't going to be there, they didn't know where he was, and Suzan wasn't sure when he would be back. It was only later his men told him Dusty was traveling around the various parts of the world basically being an advocate for Dragon rights.

He never would have thought that Dusty would be able to do that. But again he was a Battlemage, and once again those rules didn't really apply to them.

As he thought about it, it was Aric who was the only mage to ever kill one solo and later it was Dusty who found a way to tame their race. Wolfgang was never failed to be amazed by what the two of them were able to do when they put their mind to it.

Those surly beasts known as Dragon's weren't really known for being willing to give piggy back rides let alone making friends with humans. Yet Dusty was riding them like they were horses.

But during this time while Dusty was away Wolfgang also found out that the woman Suzan wanted him to meet after their previous adventure was Kat.

At the time he found that a little humorous. When his man sent him that picture before the invitation he realized from his files she was the same women from four thousand seasons ago. Armed with that knowledge he was really curious about how that was possible.

He also couldn't pass up this chance to get more information about her first hand either.

Wolfgang was also fully aware of the times Kat had once used many things including sex to kill early in her life although he had never told her he was aware she had done this.

Well, to be completely honest with himself, at the time he was made aware something was going on in the city she was from he had no idea it was her doing it and Aric and Brianna fixed the problem before he had enough information to form a plan.

Later he watched her travels more extensively, but she only seemed to use her power to punish evil and help those around her. He was impressed the way she seemed to turn her life around and give so selflessly of herself.

But he did find it a touch sweet how during the last few seasons of Kat was being watched and reported on that she seemed to take time out of her life to help every little person. Anyone she came across with a problem no matter how small or mundane it might be.

Wolfgang thought it was sweet because with her power he was sure she could build or even move mountains yet that seemed to be the furthest from her mind.

The other thing he found interesting was that he had already figured out countless seasons ago was that her power was indeed based on sex.

That time when his man lost part of his memory after spending a night with her only confirmed what he earlier found out about her long ago before he was forced into his hibernation. Once he saw her picture along with the report after checking his man's memory again he was sure of it.

But he decided not to judge her for what she did because given what he knew about her he was sure something happened that revealed her powers to his man and she did what she did to protect herself. And since his man wasn't harmed any other way he let it go.

Beside he didn't want to feel he was somehow judging her solely on either how she got her power or how she used it to protect herself or others.

Wolfgang was also aware during the times that he had her watched, before he was forced into his second magical slumber, that she already had quite a few men under her belt to fuel that power of hers.

That was something else that helped Wolfgang form his conclusions on how she powered herself. Although the reports of her exploits during her earlier years were far wilder than any of the reports he had received once he returned back to his organization over the last few seasons.

While he wouldn't have asked her about what she had done while he was in his magical sleep he was almost certain that she had only added exponentially to that earlier number he was aware of while he was away for over four thousand seasons.

Although lately he himself wasn't a saint either Wolfgang had to admit.

This time after waking up for the second time seasons later he had already decided to occasionally let himself enjoy the company of a woman from time to time.

He denied himself the pleasure of a woman thousands of seasons as he concentrated on building and maintaining his network. And largely because of his wife's memory of how she refused all other men until she died, while waiting for him while he was trapped in his first sleep.

But on getting around and seeing the world this second time when he awoke from his sleep. Spending some of that time closely exploring alongside Dusty brought back a few of those yearnings as he watched how Dusty was with Suzan.

Before he realized it Wolfgang also found he wanted the touch again of a woman after countless centuries of going without.

As long as he was separate from the world he was able to manage it, but being directly re-exposed to the outside, not to mention the up close and personal relationship he had with Dusty, also had an unexpected reaction for him that he had not foreseen.

Now that this was an option he was exploring there were only few rules that he had that he would not break.

The females couldn't be married, or be minors, and to him that was anyone below eighteen seasons. They also couldn't be involved in any way with someone else. By that he meant that they could not be in a relationship and then drop their relationship to try to be with him for the short periods he would allow.

Wolfgang felt this way because he knew that it would create resentment among both parties. Always in the men because their women dropping them to come to him. And possibly with the women for what they gave up for him, not to mention the fact he also refused to commit to them.

He refused to be the one to break up someone else's relationship no matter the motivation. He didn't want to be the one to break up families and dreams just to get his rocks off.

Of course a few women still tried hard to get him to change this policy and keep them, but he still had to be polite but firm in why he refused. This policy also was the reason that he also wouldn't commit to them long term. Even though all of the women already knew that he would outlive them all, a few were bound and determined to be the one he would somehow commit to.

One of the major reasons he didn't wasn't for the reasons he often gave them.

What he often said was that he was going to live longer than they would and it wouldn't be fair to them to do that to them, and while that was in fact true, it wasn't the driving force for why he close to remain alone in his life. So if any looked to be getting too attached to him he would find a way to break off the relationship quickly.

The real reason he did it was that in the back of his mind he still often thought of his long dead wife. He was still reading her journals from time to time even though he could quote each one of them verbatim from memory. There was something about reading and touching them as he looked at them that gave him something that his memory couldn't duplicate.

Sometimes as he read the journals he would feel his wife's happiness at something she wrote or feel her sadness as he touched a tear stained page.

After reading the diaries, when he closed his eyes and reflected on what he saw. Wolfgang was once more a young man and she was at his side. They were either running through the dark streets and back alleys in the city where they had had first met, or she was swinging through the trees with him in hot pursuit. She was always playfully laughing at his clumsy attempts to keep up with her.

He missed her almost with a passion that couldn't be matched.

But then he met Kat.

Something about Kat when he met her at Suzan's house made him think of his wife Beth, notwithstanding the fact that they didn't even remotely look the same.

While Beth was pretty with shoulder length brown hair, blue eyes, a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, she also had a slim and very athletic build, and was very adventurous.

So when Beth's body was compared to Kat's it wasn't fair comparison. Not with Kat's mid back length long brown hair, brown eyes, narrow waist, and busty frame. Kat's build clearly come out on top and made Beth look like she had been built like a slender boy.

Wolfgang knew that the physical similarities were not the reasons he was so attracted to Kat. Beth and Kat looked nothing like each other and didn't have a single physical quality in common.

One thing that did amazed him was that even though he knew Kat was over four thousand seasons old, still far younger than he was, Kat still looked like she was no more than eighteen to twenty seasons old, and he checked her a for a glamour spell early on, and he determined that she wasn't using any.

The natural beauty was also something of a plus in Kat's favor, although it was confusing to him how it was possible. No records seemed to indicate how it was possible if she wasn't magically keeping herself alive.

But as he dwelled on the reason why he felt about her the way he did, as he had many times before, he realized that it was Beth and her outlook on life, the way they both smiled, some of their shared mannerisms, and even the way the both seemed to know what he was thinking almost before he did.

Often he found Kat was completing many of his sentences for him before he realized it, and he smiled as she did it. He also found that she also had a mischievous streak a mile wide and took pleasure at teasing him. She seemed to seek him out just to talk about different things that interested him and why.

Exactly in the same manner that Beth used to do to him.

Wolfgang and Kat didn't become an item when they first met. Kat never once even hinted that they should. She still went off and did her thing and he still had his various relationships from time to time.

But he still had her watched more closely from that first meeting forward because at the time Wolfgang said it was because he didn't want his interest in her to compromise his sense of duty to protect the world. Although he eventually gave up pretending that was why over time.

Strangely all reports that he received said that she hadn't been with a single man the entire time he had her watched. She was still being approached all the time, and men tried very hard to make it happen, but she always managed to keep them all at arm's length.

If Wolfgang didn't know better he would have thought she knew she was being watched, but his men and women were careful and she never knew she was under surveillance, of that he was sure.

The reports also stated that she often worked odd jobs from time to time for money and still helped people when she could and still kept her "Angel of Mercy" title, but sleeping with men during this time appeared to be out as something she was willing to do.

Eventually over time they started to draw closer and closer to each other.

While they hadn't ever slept together they had shared quite a few kisses and intimate moments just sitting and holding hands. A few times Kat made it a point to sit in his lap and make out with him before she left. Sometimes it was just playful and other times it was very heated.

Wolfgang noticed that eventually he gave up all other interest in other women about a season or so back. And as if by some mental signal that he was unaware of, Kat seemed to start to spend more and more time visiting his home. It was if she knew that's what he was doing for her sake. They never talked about it and none of the women talked to her about it any of his relationships, but she still knew all the same.

At first it might have been several months in between visits when they started seeing each other. Now it was down to almost every other week that she came to see him at this point. He stopped having men watch her a few seasons back. Wolfgang didn't want her to believe he had no trust in her. And they grew closer as the seasons passed.

As he set about collecting what he needed to take a bath and change his clothes to get ready he thought he acted like a young boy on his first date. He wonders why he still wanted to make a good impression on her after all this time.

While he was still debating why he was doing this it really didn't matter because he still went off and still did everything he could to impress her. He was also debating on whether or not to take her on a stroll through the garden in the moonlight.

Wolfgang thought he might actually make his move on her tonight to woo her into his bed and see what happened. Not since his wife died had anyone managed to get past his guard and into his heart like Kat had done. Because of that link to her he was so careful to take his time to make sure.

And she seemed to live as long as he did he was ok with taking the time he did to be sure.

Kat smile was so big that it looked like a second sun as she put up her phone. She grabbed her pack and started for the first early morning ferry that would take her to Wolfgang's island. Later she would walk the entire distance from the ferry to his home and would be at his home just before night fall.

But she was sure she wouldn't be able to tell anyone how she got there, Wolfgang had finally ended the call by answering her "I love you" with one of his own. She was sure that traveling the far distance to his home would feel as if she was walking on clouds the whole way there.

One thing she figured out early on in this relationship was that he really guarded his privacy.

All of the people who lived in the city where he made his home also seemed very protective of him and his privacy. He still had his secrets she found, but she wondered why everyone around him was like that.

The first few seasons that she visited she knew she was watched. And she also knew she was watched well from the shadows as she entered and left his home.

Kat realized that the people watching her thought she didn't see them, but she had spent too much of her early life being alert to miss the skills of people who hadn't lived a fraction of her lifespan.

She also realized this sense of protection for Wolfgang was the reason she had a very hard time making any friends with anyone who lived in the city each time she visited. Even women and children who normally would come right up to her viewed her with suspicion. Men who might normally only approach her for a brief liaison would give her suspicious looks when she mentioned she was a guest of Charles Wolfgang.

Everyone seemed to mistrust her from the start no matter how hard she tried to be friendly.

But when she went out with Charles it was different.

People greeted him and seemed to respect him. While he didn't seem to hold any public office everyone greeted him like he was the mayor or councilman of the city. She had seen Kings get far less enthusiastic responses than what he got. He always stopped and spoke with everyone and he took out time to hear their problems and offer suggestions to help solve them.

As she stood by him and watched she could feel the charisma and power that radiated from him and made him who he was. The people around him obviously loved him and respected him and it showed in his actions that he felt the same about them as he walked around among them.

It took almost five seasons of visits before the people of the city trusted her enough that she was no longer being viewed as an outsider. It was hard and tedious work, but Kat hung on.

At first she didn't visit the city that much because she wanted to gradually win everyone over, but as time went on she slowly stepped up her visits until she was greeted similar to how Charles was when they were out walking the city.

Eventually the people accepted her. Not quite like they did with Charles, but she didn't feel they wanted her away from him as soon as they could arrange it either.

That made her smile, but it was agonizing for her to move as slowly as she did to accomplish this. But as she reflected on it she realized that she wouldn't do anything to screw this up. It was too important to her. It might be the most important thing she had ever done in her life!

The first time she saw Charles she saw that he looked exactly like her Elliot from so long ago!

To make it even harder for her Charles shared many of Elliot's mannerisms. The way he laughed, the way he smiled, the way she could almost feel what he was thinking and then say it and actually be right. He made her feel at ease and had an easy manner that made her feel safe.

It was just like how it used to be with her Elliot so long ago before she screwed it all up.

At that first dinner date with Charles it was all she could do to not crawl across the dining room table and throw herself on him while they were at Suzan's house that first night.

Looking back she realized that at first she didn't even want to meet him, but since she had nothing to do that night she figured she could be gracious and stick around. But Kat was so happy she had. She felt a quickening in her chest the moment she laid eyes on him.

It was a feeling she had not felt since Elliot

The only difference that she could see was that instead of Elliot's brown hair Charles had curiously snow white hair for such a young man. She then started moving slowly to build his interest in her, very slowly because she was willing to wait for him.

Kat had enough experience in life that she could tell that Charles was very attracted to her. To be honest there were very few men who weren't attracted to her she realized, and even those who didn't seem to be still gave her a good once over as she walked by, but Charles still didn't react like she wanted him too.

She hope that he would suggest they try and get to know each other better after they met, but he just excused himself and said it was time he returned home after the meal. But Kat was determined not to let him go after that first meeting.

After that meal she somehow managed to get herself invited to his home without using seduction or magic to make it happen.

At first he didn't act all that enthusiastic to have her want to visit him, and he tried hard to counter her offer by offering to meet her somewhere else, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. She needed it to be his home so she would have a base to work from as she started on her campaign to win him over.

One of her life long prayers had been answered and she wasn't letting him get away from her at any cost. She needed to see if he could finally complete her after so long of feeling like she was still missing her other half. This might be her last chance or one that might not come along again for another four thousand seasons she felt.

Although to accomplish this she needed to know where he made his home. That way she could become a fixture there and make it hard for him to think of anything else but her.

But as she spent time with him she could see he was extremely gun shy around her for some reason, although he never really said why. He never quite opened up to her. While that was frustrating she kept at trying to make it happen. She would never let him see anything but good reasons why she should be in his life.

Though over the last ten seasons they had become close, but there were still some things that he politely refused to talk to her about. She forced herself to stop asking about them in fear of losing him altogether.

It was all she could do to not use Succubus powers on him to get him to take her to bed, but she wasn't really sure that her powers would even work on him anyway. She once tried to read his mind to get a better understanding of what made him tick and found his mind closed off to her, similar to how it was seasons ago with Aric and later on Dusty.

Kat had no idea why that was, but she was able to sense a tremendous amount of power in him. So she also knew he was a mage of great power like Suzan told her.

But none of that mattered to her.

All that mattered was that over the course of the last couple of seasons she had managed to get him to only want to be with her.

Oh she knew that there were other women, women know these things without needing to be told, but she gradually held him just so, kissed him a little differently, rubbed various body parts up against him accidently, or just plain sat across his lap as she said nothing and stared in his eyes.

And as planned, before long it was only her that he concentrated on.

It took a large number of seasons, but she had already waited so many seasons for someone like him. She would use all her experience with men to make sure she made not a single mistake or misstep in their relationship. She wanted him badly enough that she would do everything in her power to make it happen.

The other thing that happened during this time was that she found she had absolutely no interest in being with anyone else until she made Charles realize she was all he needed. She had once screwed up and sacrificed her life together with Elliot before because of her curiosity about being with other men. So now she wouldn't do anything to give Charles pause about her.

She would be so clean of other men and any relationship entanglements that she would squeak when she moved. He wouldn't find anything about her that might lead him to ever believe she wasn't someone who was dedicated to only him.

Kat also knew that she had lost it all only because she was seen by someone she didn't know, and who later told Elliot what she was up to. This time there would be nothing to tell because she wouldn't do anything that could get back to him.

This time she would do what she should have done the first time around and walked away. This time she would make sure to focus solely on Charles and nothing else.

Surprisingly as someone who had sexual relationships makeup a huge part of who they were, Kat found it quite easy to go without sex all this time as she worked slowly on building his interest in her. For the first time that she could remember the thought of sex with anyone but him turned her completely off.

As she stood on the ferry looking at the approaching island she was lost deep in her planning on what she should do next to push this relationship along.

Charles wasn't getting any younger and she wanted to experience life as his wife, and possibly think about children. While he looked just as young as she did, he would grow older and this was time she could be spending with him every day building a life together.

While Kat daydreamed she completely missed the nondescript man who was watching her casually from the back of the boat. He was dressed in a plain light brown button up shirt with a collar, dark brown pants, and travel boots. He had a pack on his back similar to hers and managed to watch her while keeping his head down and appeared to look in every direction except hers.

There were many people on the boat because there was a large town that had sprung up on both sides of the coast close to Charles's island home. Since people lived and worked on both sides there was hourly ferries that ran between them, so his being on the ferry wouldn't normally have raised an issue because of all the other men around them.

All the other men looked at her with different degrees of lust and sexual interest, as her long brown hair blew in the wind and she used a hand to brush it out of her face. But he had a look of cool indifference that seemed out of place given what was going on around him with the other men.

As Kat got off the boat before everyone else, the man kept back a good distance and even allowed her to disappear down the road for about ten minutes before he even started out to head in the same direction.

Galvin wanted to let her lead him to Wolfgang so he could finally do what he had been contracted to do.

What had prevented him from completing this contract any earlier was the fact that what this man who was his target had as security system was just plain freaking scary. Galvin had never seen anything like it before, and doubted he would ever again.

No one had ever managed to keep him out of their homes or businesses when a job needed to be done, but this man had. Everything that he was able to find out about Wolfgang's security, all the active and passive systems he had, it just boggled the mind.

Most of what Galvin found had looked innocuous and harmless to the average eye at first, but to his trained eye he could see the full danger his system presented. There was no way to enter that valley into the city at night undetected no matter how he approached. The combination of magical detection and human activity covered everything.

Galvin couldn't even find someone bored or sleeping at their post to exploit, the men were rotated every three hours and even then they rotated in turns on every single hour with three men at every station.

While it might look inefficient to the naked eye to have them moved so often, someone was always moving, always watching, always checking on the others, and was always on alert. It was hard to pin down a weakness to exploit because there wasn't anywhere that someone wasn't observing for some reason.

Even if he decided to kill all three men at a particular section, the rest of the area would be suddenly alerted to the change in their body's actions whether it be sleeping or death. There was a spell on them he could see with his enhanced eyes that monitored their body's activity. For them to stop moving in one place for too long alerted others that there was something that needed to be investigated at that position.

So taking out the guards was out as an option, unless he followed in a large army, and even then they would know he was nearby pretty quickly.

The level and lengths his target went too to protect this valley was like he lived as if he expected to be attacked at any moment, and Galvin couldn't find any holes in his security as a way to use to get in, save one.

It was the woman who he was now trailing.

Yet Galvin noticed that every time this woman visited the security became just a little more lax. It was as if everyone relaxed around her and they weren't quite as diligent when she was there.