A/N: I love this story, and I love the cover art I made for it. If you want more info about the characters, go to my profile, and link to my writing tumblr is there, and I've got character profiles on there. Or, you could read "In a Little Neighborhood".

Please review.

"Feline Tendencies"

The first thing that happens is your heart beat seems to get louder. You can hear the blood pumping in your ears, fingers, and chest. Then your feet begin to ache, like they do when you're up high and you look down. (That feeling is like your feet telling you not to jump.) Others talking quickly becomes a background noise, and all you can hear is your breathing, and your heart. You glance around the room, and you pick up on dozens of details. All this happens in just a couple of minutes, no more than three. Sometimes it can feel like hours.

After that, you're only aware of what will happen next for only a millisecond- and that's if you've felt this feeling before. A powerful soreness erupts in your body and spreads to every muscle you have. It's similar to the soreness you would feel if you were finished with a long whole-body workout. The feeling you have if you did that, magnified several times, and then you would have the feeling of what only a select few would experience.

It's not even quite a "select" few. It's several hundred people in the world who occasionally get this feeling, and it's stronger for some than others. Some can simply acknowledge they have the feeling, but can ultimately ignore it. For about half of these "few" however, they act on this feeling, but it's an Urge. These very few act on the awful Urge to kill.

I am one of these people.

"Damn it to hell today was rough," Jade groaned from beside me. She was around 5'5, medium length solid black hair, and tough sea-foam green eyes. She had a foot up on my dashboard and a hand in her hair. I was leaning back in my own seat, taking a turn left.

"I know." Our day was actually normal except for one thing- we were both the type of person that gets the urge to kill. After having dealt with the Urges for more than a decade we knew to expect it, and today was a day where we knew it would happen. I was already gritting my teeth because the pain was already starting to sink in.

It was worse for me than it was for her. I got it from my dad, a fairly pure-blooded…killer. I hated that word.

"At least you have a boyfriend you can have sex with. Jackson wants to wait; he wants to make sure we're committed before fucking." I swear, Jade would look complete with a cigarette between her fingers. She doesn't like that habit though, and neither do I.

"He's probably making sure you're committed. You don't have the best track record with this shit," I murmured, not taking my eyes off the road. I felt like I was slowly slipping into autopilot. Jade scoffed.

"Yeah I don't. Still, this is the longest relationship I've been in and I'm not freaking out over anything at all. He should see that I'm serious about this." She rested her head against the headrest behind her.

"See if you can convince him to sleep with you- he knows what you're going through because he goes through it too, even though his Urges are weak. I think he'd be willing to do something if you're going to be in so much pain. If that fails, you and I both know how to control men when we need to," I suggested. We were getting closer to her place, I could see it.

"Yeah, I guess. See ya later Rose. Don't get into a crash on the way home," she said her parting words as she got out of the car. I'm not even sure it was completely stopped before she had opened her door.

I couldn't blame her- I knew what she was feeling. I knew it better than she did.

"I won't. I'll see you tomorrow," I raised my voice enough for her to hear me, and she gestured a quick wave of her hand, hardly even moving it. She didn't look back either, but I didn't expect her to. I pulled away.

I'd known Jade since we were nineteen. She'd grown up in a tough city, and she'd been neglected as a kid, along with her sisters. They passed away after getting mixed up in either drugs, or being a killer. She had nothing to do with any of her family after that, and the small town thing seemed like a good idea to her. I would have told her to run far away, but I was friends with her too quick to want to make her leave.

We wouldn't say it out loud, but we'd been best friends for about seven years. We knew a lot about each other, and could read the other like an open book with first grade words. We'd set up a nice little niche for ourselves, with our special friendship.

I went the speed limit on the way home, only a mile or two above. I needed absolutely no attention to myself, because goodness knows what I'd do if anyone other than David said a single word to me right then.

The pain and urge was said to be satisfied only one way, until way back when two killing lovers discovered a way to avoid taking a life- and that involved a certain act of making a life. Or at least just the act that could result in one. It completely took away the ache that was so intense the only way we could move was if we were moving to our target. It was a rather great solution.

When we figured this out, we did some experimenting. Well, I didn't because this took place in the sixties. The people who normally wanted to rip people's throats out turned into calm, sex loving people. It was discovered that one, sexual intercourse helped immensely, and was the only alternative to get rid of the feeling the way killing did. Two, the closer we were to the other person the better the relief was.

I slowly pulled into a stop, and for just a split second saw the red light before it turned green. The quick switch and the color red was what finally put the force behind the ache. My heart seemed to get louder and yet it didn't speed up. It was only for a nanosecond that my bones locked, and then it was all I could do to not get a speeding ticket. Man, if I had known this would happen today I would have stayed home, and called in sick, and then called Jade to advise her to do the same.

"Damn it," I whispered as I pulled up to my house. Most of the time, David got home from work and was on his couch long before I was able to pull onto my own driveway. I got off at five; he got off at four-thirty. Today was not the case, as I could tell from the lack of his car in his driveway.

I slammed my door shut and shielded my face from an elderly woman watering her garden several houses over. Bless her heart; she didn't need to see my hidden rage.

I shut the door in such a slow and controlled manner it pained me even more than I was already. I backed up until I was against the door, and slid down with my face in my hands. I was shaking, and a few growls of anger slipped out. I was starting to feel like a predator.

I was often described as graceful and appeared to be some descendent of a feline animal when I attacked. To them it looked like I was doing what came natural to me- which I was. I also liked to "play" with my targets, or food, in a lioness' case. I would taunt them with my words; beckon them to come to their killer.

That was when I was going through my studies at some assassins' academy. They wanted to watch me and a few other students. They took my "prey" away from me before I could do anything. Funny how I was known as top of my class after their experiment. It was also funny how people seemed to be just a little afraid of me when I walked down the halls of that always cold building.

"Shit," I moaned, banging my head on my door a handful of times. I was shivering and wanting to move, wrap my fingers around someone's neck, strangle them and watch their life bleed out. The shaking and shivering and not moving was me controlling myself, or at least attempting to. I wouldn't be shaking if I were being productive. I let out a quiet scream of frustration.

"Fuck," I whimpered as I weakly hit my head on the door one more time. All over, in every muscle the ache was strong enough to nearly choke me, cut me off from oxygen. I needed my solution right-

Bam. A door, a car door was shut right then. I exhaled unevenly, and almost like I'd been crying. I touched my cheeks to make sure I hadn't been, and was pleased that the pain didn't trigger any tears. I took a few shallow breaths and stood up. I opened my door, walked out, and shut it behind me. I took steps of normal speed across my small lawn, and across David's lawn.

I turned the knob to his house, and let myself in because I knew he would be expecting me. He was bent over papers in his kitchen when I first saw him. He glanced at me, sensing my presence.

"Hey Kit-ten," he greeted me. He had begun to speak but I shoved him up against a wall. My chest pressed against his, and my breathing was labored. I grabbed his warm neck and pulled his head to me, and I kissed him hard. I pulled back and stared in his eyes. His pupils widened when he saw that my eyes were darker than normal.

"If our houses are built the exact same way then I guess I know where the bedroom is?" I whispered. He nodded, and he seemed a little strained. I grabbed his tie, and led him towards a place that I would leave a while later a happier person.

"Are you going to explain what just happened?" David asked, kissing my neck one more time before dropping onto the mattress beside me. I had my eyes closed, but I knew he was staring at me. His finger was lightly rubbing against the inside of my wrist, and up to the heel of my palm, and back down over and over again.

"Well David, when a man and a woman love each other very much-" I began sarcastically. He stopped me with a hand over my mouth. I bit it, and opened my eyes. He pulled back.

"I'm serious. You've never done anything like that before and you almost looked possessed, Kitten," he whispered, using my strange first name. I sighed, and put my hand on top of my head, letting it lie there.

"It's really hard to explain, David, can I do it later?" I whispered back to him. I stared into his eyes and he stared into mine. Then he exhaled through his nose and looked away.

"I suppose, but I won't let this go. Whatever happened before was weird," he said before he sat up. He made his way to the shower. I watched him.

I had to tell him more about myself, something that terrified me. He was very close to just a normal human being and here I was; a possible psycho. The fact that he was basically guaranteed sex about once a month would probably do nothing once he knew that I was the way I was. We had a stable and nice relationship- I would really hate it if it ended.

"Maybe I should distract him with food," I muttered to myself, collecting my clothes and slipping it on. His favorite was spaghetti, so I decided to go with that. It was a bit past time to make dinner anyway- I never let him cook anything, because he sucked completely at it. The noodles were almost done boiling before I realized the shower had been turned off.

"So are you going to tell me what happened back there?" his smooth voice cut through the quietness that I had been so content in. I didn't turn around to face him.

"I'm making spaghetti," I answered simply, as if he hadn't asked that. I heard him walk towards me, and with each growing step I became a little more anxious, but that went away when he put his arms around my waist and he kissed my neck.

"Please tell me what's going on," he murmured in my ear. I sighed, and closed my eyes while I leaned into him. I didn't want to tell him, and he wouldn't just look at the fact that I was making spaghetti because that normally worked.

"It would take a while to explain everything. It's not something I can answer well enough with just a few sentences," I started. He nodded.

"You kind of scared me you know, I think I deserve an explanation," he smiled into my neck. I smiled at that too.

"Go sit down," I instructed quietly. He slowly walked over to a chair at the table and looked up at me expectantly. I closed my eyes and brought my hands to my face. Explaining what went on inside me to someone who knows nothing about my world really is never fun.

"Where do I start?" I asked myself in a breath. Normally he wouldn't hear something like that, but I suppose his senses were heightened for the moment.

"Maybe you start with what made you so…angry?"

Well, here we go.

"Well, I had to manipulate the guy, but I did get laid last night," Jade said as her greeting when she climbed into my car the next morning. I laughed.

"I'm so proud," I told her sarcastically. She chuckled with her lips closed, and she slipped into the relaxed position she'd been in the day before on her way home. This was expected of her most days.

"What about you? Did you have to tell David anything or did he just sleep with you?" she questioned. I ran a hand through my hair as a sigh escaped my lips.

"Afterwards, I had to explain everything to him. I had already slipped into monster-mode by the time he got home, and he said later that I'd scared him," I answered her. She nodded, as if she understood, which I was sure she did.

"How did he take it?"

"For ten minutes he sat there, and then he got up and paced for another fifteen. Then he accepted it, and we had sex again." Her eyebrows rose.

"Well good for you." I nodded absentmindedly. I'd decided not to even bring up the handcuffs.

David had taken the information surprisingly well. At first I wasn't entirely sure he was taking the news well or not, but after I- in a moment of doubt- babbled on about how sometimes my feline like tendencies showed up in the bedroom as well as when I got the Urges he stopped pacing and looked up.

I'm pretty sure that's what did it for him.

A/N: Yep, I hope you like it, and if you do, review, if you love it, favorite it. There's a story called "In a Little Neighborhood" of how these two got together. Please go read that if it interests you at all.

~RosesAndWriting