Love at Second Glance
Part 3
by Calico Kat
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zoisite looked at the figure before him. Her back was to him so all he could
see was her wavy sholder leangth hair and floor leangth purple dress. As she
turned to face him he almost screamed, a long dead pain shooting through his
mind. -Marion! I can't be, she's dead!-

As the woman seemed to take the time to study him he studid her as well. She
had a long thin face with long almond shaped eyes. Her skin was pale and
she wore a tight fitting dress to show off her almost perfect figure. Her
thin arms hung loosely at her side, delicate as a bird but with a undertone
of incredible streangth. She had long slender fingers that ended in claw like
nails. She was actually a beautiful woman, but her beauty was tainted by an
invisible but very dominent force.

-No, not Marion, it's that woman who's been appering at all the court 
functions recently. Lady Beryl of Cibola, the one that has been vying for
Endymions attentions. I've never actually been this close to her, it's no 
wonder I mistook her for Marion, they're rather alike.-

Beryl smiled sweetly and played with a small spherical black stone, rolling 
it in the palm of her hand with her fingers. Finally she said, "Welcome,
Zoisite, correct?"

Zoisite anwsered caustiously, "Yes, I'm Zoisite."

"Good, good, I've been wating for you," she purred, smiling to revel a set
of deadly sharp fangs.

"Waiting?" Zoisite asked, not letting his nervosness show.

"Yes, I need your help."

Zoisite looked taken abck, "My help? Prehaps, first tell me what you did with
Malachite."

Beryl blinked her eyes innocently and held the stone at arms leangth before 
her, between her thumb and her index finger, then she said simply,"Only 
this."

Suddenly a cloud of thick black mist shot from the ball. Zoisite felt it wrap
around his head, oozing into his mouth and nose, into his ears and under his 
eyelids. He realized that he couldn't breathe, but no matter how he clawed at
his face he couldn't remove the cloud of formless fog. Finally he fell to
his knees, feeling almost cold blood trickling from his wounds where he had
tried to pull the fog off. Suddenly he felt confused, he couldn't rember
anything and it scared him.

"Kunzite, take our new soldier to his quarters and do something for those
wounds," Beryl said absently.

Zoisite felt warm arms wraping around him, lifting him from the cold stone
floor. He instinctively leaned into the embrace and tried to clear his mind.
Something was wrong but he didn't know what, he tried to get the person
holding him to let go and felt the person draw him closer.

"It's alright, you're safe now, trust me," a low soft voice said, penetrating
the cloud of near panic that had decended on Zoisite's mind. He looked up
into a pair of warm grey-blue eyes and gave up fighting. 

-Safe...-


The war room was always dimly lit. Not to cause the mid step collisions that
occured so ofen between the occupents of the room, but so the illsionary
staratgy map could be more easily seen.

Now the map displayed a terrain that was quite framilier to the occupents of
the room. A large three demensional map of the moon kingdom.

"Zoisite, are the rumors of the Crystal Star Gala confirmed?" Beryl asked
sharply. She was still the beautiful young woman Zoisite had met a few years
before, but now here features were sharper, almost demonic. There was a 
darkness about her that was more than frightning.

Zoisite strightned and stepped over to the table, absently placing his hand
over Kunzite's, which rested on the edge of the table. In a low clear voice
he said, "Yes my queen. My spies report that the centers of festivity will
be the palace and the temple of Diania. With hose silly Lumarians filling
themselves with food and wine it will be quite easy to destroy them."

"We shouldn't be too overconfident, with Queen Serenity and her damned 
crystal, anything is possible," Nephrite stated, Zoisite looked pensive, then
nodded in agreement.

"Serenity and the senshi are the only ones we need to be wary of. With the
shadow demons now under my command the humans will drop like flies," Beryl
said, a cruel smile playing across her thin purple lips.

"My only regret is that all the younger senshi will be present at the gala,
including Saturn and Helios. It would be better to draw them away, but at
least the elder senshi are helping the crushed denzians of earth," Jadeite
said absently.

"The younger senshi pose very little threat, they are hardly fully trained,
but their potential is formidible, take them out quickly if you can. As
Nephrite said, our only threat is Serenity, she alone has the power to harm 
the shadow warrior. Now we must divide up our ground troops," Beryl stated,
and they launched into a long discussion on battle tatics.


Zoisite lazily tossed his jacket aside and colapsed into the pile or pillows
on the bed. Kunzite rolld over and raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I'm just excited, tired, but excited," Zoisite replied to the unspoken
query.

"I know the feeling," He said as Zoisite crawled over to rest his head on 
Kunzite's chest. Kunzite looked at him and muttered in a joking tone, "All 
these pillows and you have to hang all over me?"

"Yep, get over it," Zoisite replied with a laugh.

"You be careful out there, don't get hurt."

"I won't if you don't. I don't want to loose you Kunz-chan. Please, be 
careful as well." 

"I will," Kunzite said softly, wrapping his arms around the smaller man.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

For a few minutes they lay in science, Zoisite sihed and let Kunzite's
rythmic breathing lull him to sleep. Just before he slipped into unconsiness
he looked up and whispered, "After we take the Silver Kingdom, we can be
together, forever."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zoisite opened his eyes with a groan. His head hurt. He tried to move and
found his arms and legs bound with soft silken rope. Rolling into a sitting
position he looked out into the room.

It wasn't the ornate decoration that caught his eye, nor the size of the 
room, one of the biggest he had seen in the palace. It was the blue haired
figure that sat lazily on the sofa. Lord Azurite.

Azurite looked over and noticed that Zoisite had awakned. He hopped off the 
sofa and walked across the room with a boyish smile on his face. He wore
his usual light grey uniform pants, and a loose fitting blue silk shirt
that he hadn't bothered to button. Zoisite felt light headed and something
more but managed to focous on his anger.

Azurite, still smiling, crouched down next to Zoisite. He held him by the
sholder to prevent him from moving and said in a hushed tone, "I have this
one little pet peeve, I hate being told 'no'. Kunzite should have known, it's
useless to defy me. What I want, I get. I always win."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

All you dirty minded people out there, stop now. I'm not going to write a 
lemon. I just thought this was a good situation to put him in, not good
for Zoey, but for the plot.

For the record the next chapter is written and just needs some revising.
Expect it sometime next week. 

Questions? Comments? E-mail at: calico516@aol.com