Danika woke to one very warm body pressed against her back. His hand was on her stomach under her shirt. She wondered if it had ventured anywhere else while she was asleep. Lucian was still asleep, his soft breathing against her shoulder was oddly comforting to her. She knew that vampires didn't really sleep but seeing as he had a very rough night, it was likely that he was asleep. Her mind began to wander, thinking about what it would be like if his hand did move. She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks, imagining him toying with her, teasing her. Tearing her clothes off and ravishing her, hours and hours of exploration. She squirmed, feeling all sorts of tense feelings. Her body tingled with the thoughts, desperation was setting in. She wanted him and now she had made it worse by thinking about him. Lucian moved, snuggling into her more. His hand had moved slightly, reaching the edge of her ribs and now there was something else. Her cheeks flushed as she felt him pressed against her thigh. Now she was in serious pain. Now she wanted to roll him over and wake him up. She couldn't take this any longer, she had to escape. Awkwardly she squirmed out from his grip, refusing to look below the sheets. Even though she really wanted to check him out.

Danika paced the floors, she had retrieved her dressing gown to try and give herself a dose of reality. She had moved past the drug thing; she wasn't going to get involved with him so if he continued it was none of her business. No, she preferred to dwell on her missing guitar. The whole reason she had tried to engage him in a conversation last night. She was going to wait for him to wake up, then she was going to tear strips off him. Danika made the mistake of looking at Lucian while he was asleep. He was so serene, so perfect, it made her flip on her anger again. Strands of hair fell over his forehead and into his closed eyes, a feint trace of stubble appearing on his jaw. Instantly Danika flushed, thinking very carnal thoughts about rough stubble and tender inner thigh skin. The sheets sat over his waist, covering his lower half but the view of the upper half was amazing in her opinion. He was lean, well-toned and had what she thought was the right amount of hair sitting on his sternum. Not too much, not too little, just right. She wanted to trail her fingers through the little forest, ideally when he was kissing her. Danika almost felt cheated, having spent the night in his bed and all she had gotten was one soft little kiss and that was well and truly a long time before bed. But her sensibility reminded her that he was not in the right frame of mind last night and any misbehaving between the two of them would have been completely unwise.

Danika could hear Bill complaining about the weather, it was looking rather abysmal. There were cracks in the grey clouds where the sun would shine through, giving a brief moment of hope. He was wanting to get external shots of the castle and the possibility of a downpour was making for one angry man. Danika couldn't understand his logic though she knew nothing of the world of films. She would have thought a gloomy day would be the perfect back drop for the creepy vampire castle. Throw in a bit of scary trees and glowing owl eyes and she thought that it would be awesome. There was even a creepy section of the yard that they could do the filming in. She had seen it on the tour but the queen had walked straight past it, not even taking a side ward glance at it. Danika hadn't seen anyone venture down there, all she could see was a long brick wall with a broken gate, beyond the wall was a whole heap of scary looking trees. She was itching to investigate. But of course, she knew that would be just rude and she didn't want to offend their gracious host. Even if he wasn't really gracious or overly accommodating. Danika thought that he was barely tolerant of them.

The soft morning light slowly etched its way into the room as Danika leaned on the frame of the door to the patio area. Lucian's room was a shocker and Danika had seen some pretty bad places in her time. It wasn't cluttered or overly dirty, it was just different. For all the amazing furniture in the room that looked like it cost a small fortune, it looked the opposite of what she thought a prince's bedroom should look like. He had the large lounges in front of the fireplace with the coffee table at the centre. A large rug sat in between the lounges, it looked like it had never been cleaned. She thought that the cream rug was probably once white. Behind it sat the bed, one very large and over the top hand carved wood bed. Danika thought it was very pretty but didn't think it was Lucian's style. Sure she hardly knew him but it just didn't seem right to her. It seemed too old for him.

The mantle of the fireplace had a thin layer of dust on it, like it had been several days between cleans. She wandered across the room to his robe and frowned, the words had escaped her. This wasn't a prince's bedroom, this was like a teenage boy's room, one where any parental involvement was banned. The rest of the castle was pristine, not a trace of dust could be found, the floors were perfectly polished or cleaned. Even the fire places were in really good order. But Lucian's room was a world away by comparison. Danika could see it clear as day, the staff were not allowed in this room. She thought that until the door opened just a crack, one of the maids peeked through.

'He's asleep.'

Danika wandered over to her and pulled the door open a little more.

'Of course, we uh... sneak in and remove his dirty clothes. I can return later when he is occupied elsewhere.'

She grabbed the maids hand before she could shut the door.

'You care for your employer?'

'Of course miss, but we have rules. Please do not tell him that we clean his room.'

'Would he punish you?'

'No but he would dwell on it in a negative way.' her eyes darted to the coffee table, looking back up at Danika sadly 'We do what we can to avoid conflict that results in..'

'Substance abuse?'

The maid nodded.

'I will not tell him. There are wet clothes in his shower, I found him last night passed out and I put him in there to wake him up.'

'And you stayed to care for him?'

'He fears darkness but not the night.' she frowned 'I don't understand.'

'We all fear the darkness here miss, we all fear those that walk this land without feet.'

Danika frowned harder as the maid scurried into the bathroom. She quickly followed her, unsure of her words.

'Without feet?' Danika whispered.

The maid turned to her with the wet clothes in her hands.

'Do you fear the unknown miss?'

'Danika and what unknown?'

'Bad things happened in this place, terrible people once walked these corridors, good people died needlessly. If you do not know what fear is, you will know it in this place.'

'Why stay here? What is so bad? Does it have something to do with his grandparents?'

'There is evil here. Something terrible stalks the land, do you not hear it of a night time?'

Danika shook her head. The maid wrung the clothes out over the tile watching the water slip into the blackened drain hole.

'He needs light, he needs goodness. I pray that you can give him these things because there is no one else that can. No one else has ever cared enough.'

'But you care, right? The other maid and the butler, you all care.'

Danika gripped her arm, trying to implore her, beg her, something.

'Surely I am not the only one?'

'No miss, you aren't. Yes, we care, as does his family but this is more than what any of us can offer him. What he needs is another soul that will stand by him no matter what. When he falls to his vices, he needs to be picked up again. To be shown that it is not acceptable. The previous have just accepted whatever he wanted, adding fuel to the fire with their own vices. He needs someone clean, with no vices, someone that will not accept this poor behaviour.'

She watched as the maid hurried out of the room, leaving her in the cold bathroom to ponder her words. Danika had done exactly what she had said. Last night she had picked him up and shown him that his behaviour was unacceptable. She wasn't exactly sure if she was the kind of clean person that the maid was referring to but she was pretty close. She didn't do drugs, she didn't smoke. She drank socially and was past her partying ways. Danika wandered out to the bedroom and leaned on the wall watching Lucian sleep. She had always been a one-person woman; she could never understand the concept of cheating or having multiple lovers. It just didn't make any sense to her. Lucian was hard work; Danika knew that anything with him would be a struggle but there was something that made her think that he might just be worth it.

Lucian woke sprawled out on his back on his bed. He had no clue how he got there, but at least he was in his bed. There was very little memory of last night, he could remember succumbing to the white devil again, he remembered the conversation with Danika on the patio but that was it. Fleeting snippets flew in and out. Something about a shower, he thought that he felt like he had been dragged somewhere. He remembered feeling warm all night, feeling safe. The memories that were flashing through were rousing his interest, he wondered what he did last night. It felt like his hips were pinned under a weight, upon opening his eyes, he saw Danika sitting there watching him. It was a pleasant surprise for the morning, and Lucian was grateful that someone else hadn't gotten up before him, which was surprising. He had already opened one eye open to look at her, now the other followed, the view was worth it. She was wearing a robe but it was barely closed, underneath was a tight purple tank top and matching boy shorts. Her body was fine and that cleavage was unbearable.

'Where's my guitar?'

'And good morning to you too.'

She gripped the hairs on his trail and pulled on them.

'Where is my guitar?' she grunted. 'Answer me or I'll go lower.'

'Promises, promises.' Lucian chuckled. 'Are you going to be alright with the pants or would you like me to remove them for you?'

She yanked the hairs out which made him croak with the minor discomfort. Lucian grabbed her arms and rolled her onto the bed.

'Well, well, here we are again.' he purred in her ear. 'You must like it if you keep finding yourself here.'

He pushed himself against her which made her moan quietly, his arousal digging into her. His hands slid up her leg to her backside, squeezing the flesh as he lingered around her neck. The hand moved up her body, the robe now fully parted, his hand now trailed over the shirt. His goal was only a few centimetres away, she was full and firm and no pain in the arse bra to deal with. As his hand made its way higher, he placed little kisses across her chest, his hand pulled one strap down her arm, pulling the material down. Before he could take her in hand he heard his name being called in his mind.

'Shit.' he pulled away from her body. 'My parents are here.'

Danika was left a little bereft as he got up from the bed, taking the sheet with him. He casually strolled into the robe as if they weren't seconds away from removing their clothes and ending the serious tension that had been building between them. As she watched him move, she thought that there would be nothing better than an entire morning with him and no one else.