The room wasn't spinning yet, but she was getting wasted again. Her training with Alec had proved fruitless for the last week. Her month by month lease was up this weekend, and she couldn't renew. She felt like Leon had waited on purpose for the month to end before half firing her, that way she'd just get booted and not sit there and go into debt before they evicted her. Unsure if that was better or worse, she downed a shot and tapped the counter for another. The bartender came and filled it for her, and she watched it wobble, rubbing her eyes as she finally started to feel it.

The apartment had been empty.

With a thump, she set her head on the counter and filtered the image through her mind again. The furniture had been there, but not Neil. She'd tried to apologize for whatever she'd done to upset him, but when she'd gotten there, it had been empty–all day, the evening, overnight, and the morning after. Eventually, she'd grown tired of waiting and returned to the mage complex. No one had really noticed her not showing up for a day. Leon had made some backhanded comment about checking in, but she just ignored him, and so it had been work as usual when she'd gone back, but it was gnawing on her.

Something she'd said had set Neil off, and he'd frightened her enough that she'd run. As a weak mage, she couldn't fight most vampires alone. Maybe the weakest reject vampire ever, but that was still not likely to go well. All of this, she wanted to drown out, but she was unable to wash that aggressive expression from her memory.

Neil's face had formed to the viciousness so easily, and his entire body had radiated it. That wasn't how someone kind got angry–that was how someone used to violence unhinged. Whoever Neil was, he wasn't some pampered, city-slicking vampire whose worst worry was paying rent. Neil had killed people, likely mages too.

Even if she was useless as a mage, she'd encountered a lot of vampires over the years. Her father was a war general in the battlegrounds, an isolated continent where humans were still back in the dark ages and vampires and humans fought over the right to exist. It was left that way partly to avoid that sort of chaos and bloodshed filtering into modern society, and also because it was the continent vampires had originated. Modernizing it was not the vampires' desire and the mages, though they occupied it, had no interest in planting roots of that kind.

Silvia had been to the battlegrounds, when she'd been barely old enough to remember, and she visited now and then. The vampires there were not the same as the ones in society. They were savage, brutal in combat and merciless when facing any mage. War generals like her father were the same in their eyes as tired parents just coming home from surveying land to visit their son. That was how Alec's parents had died, and her father regretted not going with them every day he breathed. The only vampires she'd seen personally had been prisoners brought in, so her opinion was biased she supposed.

During her youth, one had broken its constraints and tackled the guards, killing one and leaving another almost a corpse. Then it had died, run through by branches and ripped apart from the inside by her father. That was the last Silvia had seen of the battlegrounds as a child. As only a toddler, she'd been deposited onto Leon's mage complex to be brought up and prepared for the dangers when she was older. But she was still so weak. Too weak to be able to contend with those sorts of fights. Silvia could barely handle a vampire if they stood still.

Maybe Neil was from the battlegrounds.

"Hey there, hot thing. You want to come drink with us?"

Silvia turned back to two humans and groaned. Hats Off usually kept these kinds of guys away, but it was the weekend. Normally, she avoided the bars during peak time, but she'd been really upset after what happened with Neil and his disappearance. Guy one looked like he worked out just enough to impress ladies but was all superficial if it came to a real fight, and his wingman was so skinny that she wondered if he did meth. The guy's cheeks were sunken in and his light eyes had a deadness in them that screamed junky.

"I'm fine, thanks." Silvia downed another shot as she turned away from them.

"Oh, come now. We'll be real friendly." The muscled man's hand grazed her butt, and she spun to slap him straight in the face but froze instead.

The man cursed and struggled as Neil restrained the wandering hand with a mere few fingers. A sharp twist of Neil's wrist had the poor defenseless human yelping just before Neil used his other hand to slam his face into a nearby table. As the man fell to the ground with blood dripping from his face, Neil just slid his hands into his pockets, calm as a cucumber.

"Lady said no. Get the fuck out of here." Neil didn't need to raise his voice, because his deadly tone had the men scrambling to get away. The undamaged wingman picked his friend up off the ground, and they fled for their lives.

Worse that all of that, Neil took a seat on the stool next to her, and she cringed as the bartender handed him a drink without having to be asked.

"Are you here to throw yourself on some unsuspecting man?" Neil asked, daintily sipping his drink, and she narrowed her eyes. In the dim light of the bar, his porcelain face was statuesque, beautiful as carved marble, but the darkness creeping into his crimson eyes as he looked into his liquor took away much of his appeal.

"What's it to you?" Silvia bit out as the bartender dropped her another shot. Neil remained silent as he drank, and Silvia was unsure if he didn't want to talk or just didn't have the words. "I went back, you know, to apologize, but I guess you were too busy." It was meant as a slight, but when she peered over at Neil, his eyes were drifting listlessly over the counter top.

"I was," Neil said so matter-of-factly. "I was pulling women out of their homes and stealing them from their families so that they could serve the next three years as my family's blood slaves. Did you want to come? To see them break down into tears as I took them away? Or to watch when I sank my fangs into a few others to sate my hunger that's been ravenous of late?"

Silvia was speechless as he narrowed his eyes and took a sip of his drink. Even though the words were harsh, by his tone, it had been something mundane and tedious. None of it bothered him, not in the slightest. Why would he say such things to her like that, like the cruelty of it all meant nothing? Unless he wanted her to think he was a monster.

"You live in the battlegrounds, don't you?" Silvia asked, already knowing the answer by what he'd told her. No vampires in modern society had blood slaves–that was the practice of the vampire houses in the battleground. Maybe that was why he didn't bother answering, because it was blatantly obvious. Silence ate at her so badly that she couldn't stop herself from asking. "Those girls..."

"What about them?" Neil responded in a snap of words that had her gripping her glass tighter.

"Do they suffer?"

"In what way? We don't beat them, but they are used for blood. It's not a pleasant experience, I'm told. I suppose when my father was around, they weren't treated very kindly, but the new caretaker for them is a bleeding heart, so they are well cared for. They have beds to sleep in, things to own for themselves, the best food, and pretty much anything they ask for–"

"Except their freedom," Silvia interjected.

"Freedom to what? The humans who live in my family's territory are under constant fear of being picked off by vampires, or a particularly harsh winter, or having too many humans to feed. Living inside of the castle guarantees them safety, shelter, and food."

"That's not all there is to life. I have those things, and I'm still miserable."

"Am I part of it?" Neil asked, and she pushed the full shot in front of her away.

"No, Neil. I was frightened by you, and so I came back to talk to you about it. I just don't know what to make of you. You're so tiny but full of all this angry energy bursting at the seams to get out. At other time though, you're so gentle and desperate for touch, but then you spit things at me about enslaving women. I honestly don't know what you want from me, what you want me to think, or if you want me to just leave you alone or not."

Neil was leaning on his hand and gazing back at her with his glass still in hand. "You seem to be sobering."

She was.

Since Neil had shown up, she'd stopped drinking, and she hadn't had much to drink in the first place, at least for a mage. Mage blood filtered alcohol so quickly that she had to drink enough to kill a grown bull before it even gave her a buzz. Despite everything, seeing Neil again calmed the worries she'd been drinking off. She'd feared she'd never see him again after the incident in his apartment, but here he was. That impossibility had her reaching out and running her fingers against his cool cheek to prove he was real and that she wasn't conjuring him in some drunken delusion.

When she'd touched him, Neil had been initially surprised, but his expression had softened from the contact.

Sparks of dark magic stung her fingers as her dark eyes met his crimson, and his surprise faded to the soft expression she was used to. Something extremely delicate was buried under all of the aggression, apprehension, and the poise he was expected to have as one of his kind. It showed as he leaned his face into her hand, and as she trailed it up his face to run down his hair, Neil dropped his drink.

It went straight onto the counter, rolled, and poured all over his lap. Neil jumped up with a curse that came out as more of a squeak, and laughter took her over as the bartender handed him a towel and wiped down the counter. If the guy had been drinking more than half a sip each time, he wouldn't have had anything left to spill at all, but that was just her fish nature talking. She sucked up everything liquid near her face.

"Do you need help?" Silvia asked as he sat back down with a towel between his legs.

"You..." Neil grit his teeth and let out a breath. "Help plenty." The Sarcasm had her chuckling as he settled back in. "Why did you touch me?" Neil asked, unable to meet her eyes.

"I've touched you before, much more intimately too."

Neil whipped his gaze back and a hiss escaped had her jumping uncomfortably against the counter. "Yes, but you knew nothing about me. Even after hearing about what I've been doing the last few days, you... you still want to touch me?"

"Yes, Neil." Silvia reached a hand out and gently pat his head. Neil twitched his lips with the same displeasure she gave Tide from the gesture. "You're not a monster," Silvia said as she dropped her hand to her lap.

She knew Neil felt like he was because of what he'd done, but blood slaves were a necessity in the battleground. The only other option was raiding innocent villages whenever huger struck, and with how large battleground houses were, it wasn't feasible. It was sad, certainly, but that was how life was on the vampire continent.

"But I am a monster." Neil calmed only to sink in on himself, his face falling toward the counter and his hands dropping between his knees. "Just because I'm decent enough not to take advantage of you drunk doesn't make me a great person. I'm not kind, I get angry quite easily, and if you asked for good qualities, I couldn't name any."

"I'm not any better." Silvia nudged his face with a knuckle, and he jumped his attention up to her in surprise again. Like touching him was that repulsive. "I have no self-esteem and drown my problems with alcohol. I'm weak, and that causes me to become aggravated with people who are better than me at work, so I don't have a lot of friends."

"It's not the same." Neil sighed, leaning on his hand. "I'm a cruel person, and if you spend enough time with me, you'll run out and you won't come back."

"There's no harm in trying to be friends."

"Until you want to leave, and I won't let you." Neil bared his fangs in what was clearly a threat, but she just laughed lightly into a hand. It unnerved him, her lack of fear, and he cringed back in confusion.

"It can't be worse than what I have. Right now, no one wants me, so it wouldn't be so bad to have someone who refuses to let me go. Plus, all I'd have to do is wait for you to fall asleep and sneak out. How are you going to hold me?"

"I have ways you can't even fathom."

"A dungeon in the battlegrounds then?" Silvia ran her hand over his hair, and he turned his head away from her in annoyance. "I visit the battlegrounds on occasion, and I was raised there for the first five or so years of my life. I understand the atmosphere."

"The atmosphere." Neil groaned and slipped a hand up his face.

"Come on, Neil. It's not like I want you to marry me. Do you grill all your potential friends like this?"

"No. Most people are sober enough to take one look and turn the other way."

"Ouch. Do you charm all the ladies this way?"

"I don't interact with ladies."

"So, you are gay?"

Neil was silent, ending their shotgun retorts with the clenching of his teeth and a flare of annoyance in his eyes. He flexed his hands in his chair and then slowly and shakily extended one out to her. Next to her face, it stopped, trembling, and she leaned into his touch. Cool skin thrummed with dark energy against her face, like lying on a vibrating ice pack, but the longer he gazed into her eyes in silence the more it warmed.

"Women find me frightening," Neil said in a whisper as his eyes fell from hers.

"I can scare me a man or two away as well." Silvia winked, and Neil's smile spread enough that a chuckle escaped him. "You look really good with a smile."

"You look good all of the time," Neil retorted, narrowing her eyes.

"That's not what I meant. I like you just fine all the time too. You just glow when you smile. It's a nice look on you." As she spoke, Neil slid his other hand to the side of her face and pulled her gently to him. For a moment, she thought he wanted to kiss her, but he stopped with his forehead on hers.

"I apologize for snapping at you," Neil said into her lips, his voice shaking.

"It's all right. Really, it is. I understand now."

"Silvi, come home with me." Neil's expression was so kind, but she leaned back from its intensity. "Not to the apartment, and I don't mean to stay. Just come see my life for the night, and I'll bring you back safe and sound in the morning."

"You want me to go to the battlegrounds?" Silvia gaped, and his frown drew small wrinkles on his forhead.

"You'll be safe in my ho–"

"Did you call me Silvi?" Silvia cut him off.

"S-sorry. Do you not like that?" Neil full on blushed ear to ear and looked away from her. It was difficult to remain frightened when he was like this, but when he got angry again, she'd have nowhere to run if she was in vampire territory.

"It's okay. The mages just ended up calling me Sapling as my mage name to tease me. Other than that, I've never had a nickname. If I go," Silvia paused, looking straight into his eyes so she could tell if he was lying or bending the truth. "You promise? No enslavement or refusing to return me, and no using me as a beverage?"

"None of that. I just drank the quantity of blood I'd need for the next week and a half yesterday." Neil pulled her to him and moved lightning fast. One moment they were in the bar, then the next, outside in the parking lot, and finally, in a room bigger than a house.

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Word Count: 2888