In the darkness, I found ghosts.

First Ally, wearing a white gown, as if she wasn't already enough of a cliche, her eyes two black, empty ovals.

As I continued further, passing prison cells as I went, I couldn't ignore the entities that shifted behind the metal bars.

I swallowed hard.

Their presence was draining, a thing I could feel pressing on my shoulders.

Growing tired, I stumbled.

That's when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. My father, only with soulless eyes.

I swallowed hard, tearing my eyes away from him but he was the most difficult to ignore.

In this world of dark magic, they trailed after me, my ghosts, my companions.

But there was only one mission in my mind and it wasn't to mourn the dead, nor be afraid of what their black, monstrous eyes could possibly mean.

The only thing that mattered was finding Christian.

"Christian." I hissed.

I heard chains rattle first and then a hoarse, "Bloody hell, even in my dreams I hear her voice," he went on with a low, breathy chuckle.

I could see his cell, my ghosts behind me, a cool sensation at the back of my neck letting me know they were still there.

A flash of anger coursed through my veins, a shocking current that both surprised and terrified me.

Clouds of dark smoke rose from my skin, like a caress, only one that burned.

"You look like you could use some saving, vampire boy." I said, coming to stand in front of his cell, ignoring the burning on my skin. Ignoring the eerie sound of my voice.

Raising his head, his blue eyes scanned me.

Instead of relief, or happiness, his eyes were two exclamation points of shock.

"Aimee, what are you doing? You need to get out of here!"

Frowning, I met his gaze with one of confusion. "I'm here to bust you out. I think the words you're looking for are thank you."

Shaking his head, he stood, and flinched.

That's when I got a good look at him, at the torn, blood-soaked t-shirt clinging to his chest, the purple bruises underneath.

Hot, fiery anger scorched through me.

My ghosts rejoiced, electrifying me with their touch, anxiously awaiting the explosion.

Christian grimaced, his blue eyes scanning me with worry.

"I'm going to kill him," I said, in an eerie tone that sounded so foreign to my own ears.

Christian approached the bars, one hand reaching out toward me.

"You're using dark magic." he said. "You need to stop. It will only hurt you."

"What are you talking about?" I muttered. "I've never felt better."

His fingers brushed my cheek and he flinched.

When he pulled his hand back, his palm was red and raw, the remnants of black smoke disappearing from his skin.

"Aimee, baby, please, stop using dark magic. You don't need to do this for me."

A buzzing started up in my ears, my ghosts, purring to me, their voices growing louder and louder.

"Shut up!" I told them.

But they ignored me. The ringing grew, an assortment of different voices screaming, screeching, crying, a warbled mess of horrific sounds and damn it was my skin on fire?

Christian said something but his voice was drowned out in the mayhem.

He struck the metal bars.

"Stay back," I ordered, hell bent on setting him free before these ghosts drove me mad.

Black tendrils of magic snaked out from my body. I watched them go, in fear and awe, toward the bars, slowly dissolving them like acid.

Once they were mostly melted, I dropped to my knees, a coldness sweeping across my body, my strength leaving me.

Blood dripped down my nose.

Christian rushed to me, stopping only as far as his restraints would allow him.

Frustrated, he cursed.

"Aimee, come closer." He motioned with his hand, a desperate gesture, his wrists shackled to the wall, bloody and raw.

"Can't." I gasped. "Can't move."

"Yes, you can. Come on, you can do it. From pure stubbornness if not strength."

"I'm not. Stubborn." I gasped. "I'm just. Usually. Right."

He laughed, though it sounded panicked. "You can be right from over here. Damn it, woman, I'll let you be right every day of your life if you just get over here."

"Is that. A promise?"

"Yes." He breathed.

A smile pulled up the corners of my lips. I crawled over the melted bars to where he crouched, my hand nearly touching his.

Then, the ghosts descended.

They attacked me with their cold, lifeless fingers. They scraped their fingernails across my skin, they pushed down on me like waves of black water.

I gasped and fell forward, my cheek landing against the cool cement floor.

Christian's hand gripped my wrist and dragged me the rest of the way to him, his hands going to cup my face.

"Do as I say." He ordered.

"Okay," I whispered, too tired to argue.

"Think of something that makes you happy."

"Taylor." I gasped.

The ghosts dug deeper, as if meaning to gouge the life from me.

"What else?"

"Tattoos. Tattoos make me happy."

"Keep going."

"Sometimes you," I mumbled.

He let out a breathy laugh then his mouth descended on mine. And like a special, addicting kind of magic, each stroke of his lips against mine pushed the ghosts further and further away from me.

Slowly, painfully, feeling returned to my body, the cold leaving me to be replaced by a warm need for more. My arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, pulling him closer.

One of his hands held the back of my neck, and against my protest, his lips left mine. His fingers curled around my hair, pulling slightly away to pepper kisses from my chin to my ear while I struggled to catch my breath.

"Better?"

His whisper washed through my body, making me tremble.

"H-how did you know that would work?"

"I didn't. I just remembered reading your mind the night Stefan attacked us. When you tried to heal me, you thought of things that made you happy."

"I don't know why it works but when I think of happiness, I can heal...but when I think of anger or hurt..." I trailed. "It feels like I can destroy anything." I sat up, wrapping my hands over what I was sure were holy water coated shackles. "I need to do it again. Just long enough to free you from these."

"Not a chance in hell. Besides, it'd be pointless."

"What do you mean? I came here to rescue you and I'm not leaving without you."

He tipped his chin in the direction I'd come.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw he metal bars of a prison, perfectly intact, as if the last few minutes had never happened. As if I'd only imagined destroying them.

"It was a trap. He knew you'd come." He said bitterly, scooting back against the cement wall, one elbow resting on his knee. "As soon as you step foot in this dungeon, you were trapped."

"I don't understand. If he wanted me in the dungeon, why not bring me down here with you in the first place?"

Christian sighed. "Because, Aimee, my father does his best torture in the mind."

"This was also a punishment," I realized. "Me, seeing you this way. You, watching me use dark magic."

"That's right," His Adam's apple moved as he swallowed.

"We're trapped," I repeated, shoulders slumping.

"You shouldn't have come for me. You should've stuck to the plan and escaped with the others."

"Not without you."

"Don't you see that this is worse? Now you have to do it. Now you have to kill me."

"I can't" I whispered.

"He's threatened to kill my siblings if you don't."

"I know."

"I've gotten him to swear a blood oath that he'll allow you and the others to walk free if you kill me. It was the best I could do."

"There's no way in hell he's just gonna let us walk out of here. He's lying."

"A blood oath can't be broken. You know this." His voice was gentle. Calm. But there was sadness in it too. "He trusts making you kill me will be a better kind of death for you."

"Christian, he's right. I can't. I won't. I'll kill him before I ever..."

Shaking his head, he placed his hand over mine, giving me a reassuring squeeze. "You'd never get past his guards, but you can save my family. Please, Aimee. I'd never ask this if I thought there was any other way."

"This is fucking ridiculous," I snapped, suddenly angry. "How is killing you the right thing to do? How is any of this right?"

"It's not. But there's no better person I'd rather die at the mercy of. I trust you."

"Damn it," I sniffled, swiping the back of my hand savagely across my face. "This isn't a movie and you're not invincible, Chris. Dead means dead."

"I know that," he whispered, cupping my cheek.

"No! You don't understand. I need more time!"

"We still have tonight."

Using his palm, he brushed my hair behind my shoulder, his thumb slowly caressing the birth mark on my throat.

"Chris, I--"

"Shh, Aimee. We still have tonight. Let's make the most of it."

My heart thudded in my chest, knowing where this would lead. Where I wanted it to lead. How my heart would break if we did this but also if we didn't.

Our eyes met, his a dark shade of blue, mine clouded by traitorous tears. A tiny sliver of orange sunlight filtered through what I imagined to be a crack in the dungeon walls, perfectly illuminating the masculine line of his jaw.

Reaching up, I stroked across the slight stubble. He pulled me onto his lap and I obliged.

I cradled his face between my palms, that handsome face I'd spent so much time trying to hate when all I'd really wanted to do was kiss him.

His palms came to rest on my hips.

It was crazy how such a light touch could shock me, much less turn me on, but it did, like a current of fire through my veins.

Then we were kissing, slow at first, a brush of lips, a feather light touch of skin against skin. Then with an urgency. The urgency that came with knowing there would be no tomorrow.

I wanted to memorize every detail of him. From the curve of his bottom lip to the smell of his skin and hair.

When his fingers dug into my hips, I responded by lifting my shirt over my head, my mouth coming back to his desperately.

An animalistic need for him drove me. My fingers ripped away the shredded remains of his shirt, my fingers trailing his chest, committing to memory each muscle and healing him as they went.

"I want you, Aimee." He said hoarsely. "I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life."

"Then take me." I whispered back.

And it was all the encouragement he needed to undress us.

Moments later, his fingers dug into the edges of my panties and pulled. My skin burned as the fabric dug into my flesh before they came apart between his hands, no match for his strength.

Reaching behind us, he unclasped my bra and my nipples pebbled from the cold.

Completely naked and in his arms, his eyes swept along my body, a sensual caress in and of itself.

His hands followed, forging a burning path across my skin until he reached one breast, cupped it and squeezed, eliciting the most satisfying moan from my throat.

I could feel his erection between my legs, trapped behind the fabric of his boxers.

With a few gentle tugs, I relieved him of them and made my way back to him slowly. I didn't mean to move slow but it was impossible not to be awestruck by his perfect body.

He was built like a model, perfectly defined muscle everywhere, narrow hips tapering off onto a glistening rod standing to attention.

As I sat back on his lap, the hard shaft of his penis became wedged between my thighs, the more fleshly tip slowly and almost painfully dragging across my slit.

I whimpered, squirming to get closer.

To feel him. Inside me.

"Wait," he said, voice throaty.

"What is it?"

"A man on death row should get a last meal."

His chains rattled as he flipped us over.

They must have burned every time he moved but right now, he didn't appear to notice.

Gently, he set my head down on the cold, concrete floor.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't cook." I said, biting my lip.

"Not what I had in mind."

"Chris," I moaned, as he kissed down the valley of my breasts, across my stomach and past my belly button.

"I want to taste you." He murmured, going lower still.

After peppering kisses across my hip bones, I finally felt his hot breath at my center.

When his tongue touched my clit, it felt like I might explode.

Pleasure raced throughout my body, concentrated on the bundle of nerves he slowly sucked into his mouth.

I moaned, my fingers tangling in his hair.

"So good," He groaned, burying his face further.

The pleasurable sounds he made against my pussy were almost as satisfying as the way he ate me, tongue swirling in circles, lips kissing my sensitive skin.

When he sucked me into his mouth again, I came undone, colors bursting behind my eyelids.

I felt him chuckle lightly against my now slick folds before lapping up most of the wetness.

Slowly, and with his eyes glued to mine, he moved back up. He positioned himself between my legs, his dick teasing the entrance to my hole.

One hand wrapped around my throat, but it was gentle, his thumb stroking circles against my birthmark.

"I'm going to make love to you now," he whispered, blue eyes trained on my face.

"You promised you'd fuck me."

"I can do both, darling."

I felt the pleasurable intrusion suddenly, every nerve ending inside me alight as he buried himself to the hilt. A slow moan left my lips, quickly drowned out by his lips as he kissed me.

He took his time kissing me, his mouth hot and open.

I clenched around him each time he bit my lip.

"Fuck," He whispered. "Do it again, baby. Squeeze my cock inside you."

I did as I was told, loving every dirty word he said to me, but even more the way his hands worshiped my body.

The way his eyes looked at me as if I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

He pulled back and pushed back into me, this time with desperation. We both panted and moaned as he hammered into me, finding a beautiful pace, an angle that hit every spot just right.

"You feel so good, baby," He murmured against my mouth.

"More," I gasped. "Please, Chris, more."

"Anything you want. Anything."

And he did, give me more I mean.

He pounded into me, hard, and fast. My pussy practically cried for him as he murmured sweet nothings into my ear and when I could no longer take the friction he caused inside me, I burst, coming apart beneath him.

His arms squeezed around me as he spurt out his own orgasm with one, two, three thrusts before slumping over me, his face buried into my neck.

When it was over, I sat in his lap, cheek resting against his chest.

The steady beat of his heart was soothing.

Christian stroked up and down my bare shoulder blades, back and forth, almost absentmindedly but oh so gently.

"You touch me like I might break." I observed.

Christian smiled, meeting my eyes with his sincere blue ones.

"I'd hold you like this even if you were a vampire with twice the strength as I. You'll always be soft to me." His fingers brushed my lower back and I shivered.

"Soft, not weak." He amended.

"The sun is going down," I whispered, eyes glued to the darkening slice of moonlight pouring through the cracks in Dannek castle's dungeon.

"I know," he replied.

"Henric said it would happen at nightfall."

"I know. Just lie here with me a little while longer." He buried his face in my hair. "Just a little while longer."

A/N hello loves. First of all, thank you so much for reading this far! If you're enjoying the story, consider leaving me a comment or writing a review!

It would mean the world to me <3 thank you and happy reading.