"A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness, but still will keep"
Endymion - John Keats
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She pressed her hand into the leather that covered the carriage windows. Watching her palm sink into the natural material, and gathering as much heat as she could get. It was thought, cut by Cian himself to fit over the glass slats. Impenetrable by light, so much that the cabin they fared in mimicked midnight.

"It will start to sting." Cian reminded her lowly, his clothing rustling as he adjusted himself on the bench across from her. With her supreme vision, she could see the outline of his shape in the dark. Even the glow of his bright irises.

He knew she did not forget that eventually, the sun would burn her through the leather if she touched it. She relished in the small pain because it felt like a simple sunburn which she could remedy with olive oil.

Alas, she let go of her dream. Her hand fell beside her, overturned so that Cian could not see the raised skin of her palm.

She sighed, settling into her bench and fixing a blanket over her lap. It was difficult, considering her state of dress. As they were to travel, proper garments were necessary to keep suspicions off of them as they maneuvered around humans and supernatural alike.

The deepest burgundy adorned her dress, a hoop underlay causing the skirts to bubble up around her midsection. Taffeta under the light turned the dress into the River Styx as she moved. The bodice was kept tight with whale boning, creating a V at her navel. The shoulders fell to the sides, ruffled with the material of the dress and hemmed with black lace. She wore a Gorded corset underneath, Despite her vampiric body standing the test of time it would still be unnatural to not follow the current state of dress. She also liked the slight way it lifted her chest and cinched her waist. The beings she would have to manipulate along this journey would adore it too. All so she could say, "We are journeying to my Aunt's birthday celebration in Naples, and we just need to take a rest tonight."

A ball gown was not fit for travel, but they needed a story. Complex. Itchy. But she loved looking beautiful more because it meant more power.

On the first day, they would only travel. No stops. It would not be possible, as their carriage was currently charmed to keep moving without a horse or a driver. When passing through human settlements, their eyes would play tricks on them with little intervention.

"What if we cannot find them?" She questioned, messing with her blanket. She wanted to press her hand to the window again, but she knew she would get scolded by the young Nonno across from her.

Cian groaned, the deep sound hitting her right in the chest. She heard him move around more, the slide of his body around the padding of the wooden carriage bench. As restless as she was, it must have been worse for him, as his height barely let him fit into the carriage comfortably.

"We will. Though we have never left Florence together before, there are safe houses for our kind lining the entire country. There are markers on the outside of buildings. On their doors, their windows. I heard from Zuri that any inns, osterias, cafes with a seal of a wolf's head inside a crescent moon should-"

"Melody's Familiar?" She interrupted. Zuri did not take his title too seriously. One could usually find him facedown in any alcohol that could get him the most fucked up at the moment.

Did I hear? Should?

Words that Cian used on purpose, only when there was a chance he could be wrong. He never used such diffident phrasing otherwise. While she had ideas strategies and thoughts that jumbled together, Cian was the one to pull them apart and sort them out. He knew practically everything, and when he did not, he was careful to establish that if things went wrong it would not be his fault.

"That is a large assumption for something we need, yet we haven't seen before." Serafina bit out, frustrated. Immediately regretting it, she could feel the man tense from across the way at her tone.

He met her flame with a cool wash.

"I have it all figured out, Serafina. While you slept, I walked around until I spotted the sigil in Florence. They exist, and we will find them." She did not sleep, she hibernated as all vampires did to stave off thirst and to recharge. He still called it slumber. "If we need to stop and we cannot find any safehouses, we will go with our alternative plan and stay with humans."

He did not understand her fervency, and it was imperative that he remained that way.

Being with Cian in a small space, in the dark, with nowhere to escape was a different kind of torture.

He had his own room in their apartment, which was plain and covered in only gifts she had given him. She did not visit him there often, as it was just another way temptation found its way into her heart. They would often talk in her room, where Cian could leave at his earliest convenience. When he wasn't there, he was in his Familiar form, lounging around the living room, window sill, or fireplace. But the man rarely slept and was often wandering around the city, stealing bits of information from other beings in the underworld.

Silence settled between them, though an apology did not leave her lips for snapping. He did not expect one.

Her skin still tingled with the sensation of him being close. His peppermint and cinnamon breath was only a few paces away, and his long body stretched across the width of the carriage.

Enough, she told herself.

Their proximity was of no concern to him.

"Tell me about before." She whispered, closing her eyes. She would not fall asleep, as it was still daytime. But the rumbling of the carriage driving over terrain would not take her mind off of her father's blood spraying across the room. It would not take away the last look he gave her before his eyes went blank. She would not have to clarify what she meant.

Cian folded his hands across his stomach, retelling her the same story she had heard over a hundred times, "There was only darkness before you. I do not know where I came from, or even if I existed before. I have the faint memory of hovering over your body as a child, and then nothing. Then years later, I came into consciousness. Floating between both of my forms. I had a name. A body. Feelings and knowledge that were both mine and not. And I knew you were" He paused, hesitating despite his repetition, "I had to protect you. My sentience found my soul and clung to it. Memories flooded me, of the unknown. Of the Underworld, of things I did not know existed. I knew I had to find you, and that I would guide and follow you anywhere you should choose to go. I found you as the vampiric curse took hold, and I began with you. You looked like an angel fallen to Earth, but your eyes spoke of righteous vengeance." The man let out a breathy laugh, "I never realized just how much trouble you would be."

"You spawned as a bastard?" Serafina cracked at his expense, pulling her blanket closer to her chin.

He clicked his tongue and sucked in a breath, "I was made in your image, was I not?"

He had a point there. Familiars, wherever they originated, were supposed to be a mirror to their vampires. Twin flames brought together by supernatural circumstances. Serafina did not believe it, as his best qualities were the ones she did not possess.

"Would you go back if you could?"

Would you have denied our entanglement? Would you have walked away and forgotten me?

Her heart beat wildly as she waited for a response. Knowing he would not spare her the truth.

"I would go back." Her stomach revolted, but he continued to speak, "Just to pick your spiteful ass up off the ground again."

Serafina laughed madly, wondering how she could have ever doubted him. Even if he did not love her romantically, he cherished her with the same insanity she procured. Against all of her instincts, she fell asleep as Cian continued to recall their first few years together.

+

Two days and two nights slipped by, and still, they could find no safe houses. She alleviated the gnawing feeling in her heart with coerced sleep and Cian's baritone. Her dreams weaved the same tales that she lulled her to sleep with.

"You must drink Serafina," Cian commanded with her full name. It was before he knew the nickname Rin would one day soften her into clay for his bidding.

"I will not."

"So you will starve?" He was exasperated, though his expression made little change.

"And if I do?" She shook in the corner of her apartment, too hot and too cold. "I am dead. No one will care. Even my family stopped looking for me. The Sanguine Council could not care less if I live, die, or go mad."

The man's pretty eyes widened as if he could not believe the words that came forth from her mouth. He would continue to be shocked by every delirium-induced thing she said. She could drop dead at this moment, and she would not care. His face would be the last thing she saw, and she was okay with that. With the likeness of Lucifer, before he fell from God's grace, she would go willingly.

But he had not the kindness nor the patience of an angel.

"You have not drank blood in six months. You are already suffering the effects of it. Your hair is falling out, your skin is parched. Your eyes are dull and you are irritable and quite frankly, straight-up delusional. Soon your teeth will start to crumble, your claws will be extended without fail, and you will start attacking blindly so your body restores itself. You will not die, you will just become a"

"A demon? That is what I am, is it not? I feast on other humans. I am hell itself. I deserve to starve."

Cian stepped closer, "Where is the woman that tore out her adulterous, cowardly husband's neck? She would not pity herself as you are. She would take what she needed."

She stepped even closer, to which the relentless man did not recede. His eye trained carefully on her own, even as his lips parted. "What I need is for you to let me die. The woman that you found months ago, does not exist. Gone is my new will to live, with the crunch of blood and body on my tongue. I am done for, I am damned."

She had whisked away from him before he could speak, thinking she was alone. Still trying to figure out what the burst of emotion when she stepped towards him was, or where it was coming from. Knowing little that the man could find wherever she was if she so wished. Not understanding just how deep their bound souls ran between them.

It was raining, and the sheet of it provided her solace. Her bloody tears were veiled, her body hidden by the silver fall under the moonlight. She walked to the part of the city that refused to sleep, craving wine to stave off some of the ache and soreness she felt in her emaciated body.

Stepping into the alley-driven osteria, La Luna. A preferred visit amongst the undead.

Eyes trailed her as she stepped into the dark space. Black candles with purple light emanating a strange glow and painting the beings around her in lavender. A long bar sat on a long bench instead of stools, and incense waved sensually through the air. Nouveau, they whispered. As sired vampires were a rarity under the Sanguine Council, the human-turned-vampires received copious amounts of attention. She had not an idea of who turned her, but whoever it was, did so without permission. A crime to their kind.

The same laws protected her from being executed.

She stepped unsurely forward, still unaccustomed to the openness of vampires. They bowed over each other, kissing and making strange noises. Others laughed loudly while drinking thick liquid from beautifully formed glass cups from Venezia. Even stranger happenings occurred in the dark, which she avoided with her eyes. While she knew their customs differed, her Catholic upbringing revolted at the open display of debauchery.

She did not know where to sit. Where to go. And suddenly, she wished she had not ventured there at all. Her teeth chattered loudly, and every vampire had lost interest in her frail form.

Except one.

"Come sit with me, child." The voice was high, but male. The sound of breaking glass.

She turned to find a well-dressed man spread across two booths, a glass of wine between his pointer and middle finger. He was as perfect as the rest, smooth-skinned and unnaturally proportioned. Beautiful, but she knew it was all a disguise. A trap to lure those unsuspecting closer.

With nowhere else to go, she joined him. Her hands folded in her lap, and careful not to touch his wide-open thighs. The older vampire observed her wariness, and his lips only curled up further.

"What is your name?"

"Serafina."

The man laughed, a trickling waterfall that felt as soothing as the patter of rain, "I was expecting Maria for a girl like you. Something sweet, pure." He leaned closer, his finger trailing across her arm and she could no longer hide her shiver, "What is an angel like you doing in hell?"

If only he knew what she did, maybe he would not be appraising her with unguarded delight.

She took in the way he leaned closer. How he smelled of alcohol and smoke, and something more ancient and bitter. His eyes narrowed indiscernibly, and he licked across one fang. His feigned sympathy only furthered the sick feeling in her throat. To him, a little coaxing, and the new, strange vampire girl would find her way into bed with him.

Yet Serafina realized it was a blessing that he did not know she was the furthest thing from pure.

"I am thirsty, and I do not wish to drink from humans. It is...difficult for a human sire, Signore-" She trailed off, doing her best attempt to look lost.

"You poor thing." He cooed, moving closer. And she let him. Flies struggled less when they believed themselves to be free of a spider web. "Signore Nicoli. But you can call me Carlo."

Cian knew most things, but not everything. He was hell-bent on following rules, even when she wished to break them. This older vampire would say and do anything just to have a taste of her. He believed her too simple and naive to use the information he would give for her bidding.

"What can I do?" She placed a hand on his chest, biting her lip. Mimicking what she had seen in the shadows during her days as a vampire, "I cannot go on like this any longer. I need to feed, but I-" The sentence was cut off by her ingenuine whimper.

Carlo's eyes lifted, his hand catching her own on his chest as his undead heart pounded heavily within its chamber. He leaned closer, "Stay quiet angel, for this is a secret for those that are born vampires. I am making an exception for you." His lips brushed against her ear, and she fought herself not to recoil, "Sometimes when humans are too good about staying home after dark, we feed from each other to keep the hunger at bay."

Her heart quivered with the knowledge, "Really?"

He shivered under her elated tone, "Yes. But there is one more thing." He pushed his glass of wine closer to her, exactly where he had taken a drink from.

"What?" She asked impatiently. Letting it carry her closer so that she was half-draped across his chest.

"We only take from our lovers, as biting between our species is rather." Carlo's voice lowered in time with his hand that dropped further down her back, "Intimate."

Serafina let the older vampire kiss her. Placing her hands in his hair, and pressing her closer into him. She let her teeth snag his lip, tracing her tongue across the slight cut.

Just to see if he was telling the truth.

"Serafina! Wake up."

"I am awake!"

"Barely, for two days now. I found a safe house, and we should remain here until tomorrow night." He spoke gruffly while rubbing at his neck. The lack of space in the cabin must have finally disturbed him enough to start searching.

"Right." Serafina huffed, wiping at her eyes. As the carriage was cool, she guessed they had driven through the night and it was almost morning. Which meant she needed to move fairly quickly.

Cian stepped out of the carriage first, grabbing their shared trunk. Serafina whisked open the carriage door, taking in the dark dew that clung to the trees. One large manor stood before them, a Victorian-style building. She could already feel the warmer air that leaving the North brought. Closer to true home, and still delving into the unknown.

The building had a white facade and locked bricks along the straight edges of the house. The windows were large, but sealed with dark black shutters. A central campanile sat proudly on the roof, and the door was peaked by a smaller covering and two white columns.

"Where-" Her question trailed off, answering itself as a wolf with a crescent moon slowly formed in a glowing red on the front door.

She remained standing in the carriage, one foot dangling out. As creepy as most supernatural places were something felt off.

Cian set their heavy trunk onto the ground without so much as a complaint. He adjusted his dark gray fitted frock coat, his white buttoned vest stark and unwrinkled, and smoothed back his dark hair with his hands. He drew upon his formal cane, topped with a black bull for his hand to rest on.

He held out his hand to her, making her scrunch her nose.

"Signorina."

She left him waiting long enough that he turned to her fully. With his towering height, she stood only spaces above him.

"What are you doing?" She seethed between her lips. Her cheeks burned, and she hoped within the cover of night he could not see their heat.

The man's lips pursed as he looked up through his lashes, the equivalent of rolling his eyes. "We need a story, and I am playing the part. Go along with it." His eyes glanced to the manor, "We have not a clue who resides in there or their allegiance."

"Brilliant." She said with a shaky breath, her anxiety only increasing ten-fold.

"Take my hand Rin." He asked once more.

She nodded, slipping her hand into his. Serafina could not look away from the pale expanse of it, his veins visible as he wrapped his fingers around her own. They were long and slightly rough among the softness. Their heat reminded her of the sun, burning, as she found herself leaping to the ground. Her mind was blank, and unfocused as he held her for a few more seconds, allowing herself to settle.

A simple touch of the hands should not feel this way. And yet, when his fingers grazed along her palm as he pulled away, her heart stuttered pitifully with longing.

He could not take his touch away fast enough. The man stepped away from her, the same hand she held smoothing through his black hair that was whisked away from his face with gel. A single strand fell onto his forehead as he turned away from her, fixing his attention on the manor.

"Let us get this over with."

Serafina nodded, hating the way her chest still burned from him. They pushed forth, Cian dragging along the trunk she fitted with too many dresses. She stated many an amused apology after he gave up and lifted it onto the stairs, instead of just placing it on his shoulder.

"What did Zuri tell you about opening the door?" Serafina mocked, her arms crossing over her midsection.

"Zuri told me the longer you do not shut the fuck up, the longer it takes." He said through gritted and perfectly lined teeth, frustration settling in as he placed his palm along different regions of the old door.

Serafina instigated further, watching the usually assured man struggle, "Ever tried knocking?"

"Ever tried helping instead of watching?" He groaned, smacking his hand into the surface. The 'knock' did not call upon any magic, nor beings to their discretion.

"But I love watching." She retorted suggestively. She leaned onto the door, her palm resting against the chipping paint.

"I miss the time when you were afraid of even thinking the word fuck-" He swore, running his hand through his hair once again.

Her laughter was cut off as she stumbled into the house, no longer held by the closed door.

"Cian." She called, looking out into the foyer. There was a single stairway that led into the upper levels of the house, right in the center. A long, dark wooden desk stood before it. To the left and the right, there were hallways filled with old paintings. One led to what looked like a kitchen, and the other a large living room with a burning fireplace.

Someone had to be here.

Yet, not a soul came to greet them.

Cian stepped into the foyer from behind her. Settling in a defensive stance, crowding as close as he could without their forms touching.

"Should we just go upstairs and claim two rooms?" Serafina asked, her voice lilting with uncomfortable laughter. She did not want to go upstairs. She wanted to run back into the carriage to the danger they already knew.

Cian's breath skated along her back, and she trembled, "There must be a blood contract of some sort if no one is here to speak one." Contracts forged of charms were often how their kind resolved conflict, or came to a binding agreement. It also prevented interspecies violence in shared spaces.

Serafina stepped forward, needing distance between their bodies. She placed her hand on the abandoned desk, "Maybe we place our fingerprint on here."

"Get back!" Cian yelled, pulling on her wrist.

She turned, ready to yell at him for yanking on her shoulder before she caught something behind the desk.

Marone a mi.

A woman stood behind the counter, her face concealed in a sheet of creamy fabric. Her arms were folded across the wood, covered by a strange linen fabric. Serafina felt the sense of dread in her gut deepen.

"What the fuck is that?" She questioned aloud, and Cian let go of her arm promptly.

The thing's head cocked to the side, listening.

"You are not supposed to be here." The figure warned them with a melody, the tone feminine. Her arm outstretched slowly, pointing past Serafina and at Cian. And just as dangerous as she was seconds ago.

"Not in favor of felines?" Cian asked in a droning voice, unimpressed. Serafina could hear the annoyance seep through at being singled out, even when not around prejudice vampires.

Luckily, she where he lacked in people skills, she excelled.

"Excuse his rudeness. I am Rin from the Sanguine Enclave, and this is my Familiar Cian."

She thought it would be safe to offer some truths. Some beings respected it, even if it did not favor their ambitions.

"See-yun is it?" The covered lady inquired, her voice using strange inflection for the sounds. Serafina wondered what was so funny. She leaned forward on the desk, leaning what must be her chin onto her hand. Serafina dropped her shoulders in disbelief.

Great. Even beings without eyes fancied her familiar.

"Key-an." Her familiar corrected in a neutral manner. His gaze had hardened, losing any edge of sarcasm or feigned tolerance.

"Ah." The concealed being exclaimed quietly, lifting its head and standing straight. Responding mischievously, "If you are both who you claim to be, then you will have no issues binding yourself to an agreement."

A few minutes ago, and Serafina might have been more willing.

"No, that poses quite an issue for us."

The being continued as if she never responded.

"Here you will not draw blood. Here you will not call upon others in your enclave. You will not use hellfire, and you will not use any other abilities you shall claim by ingesting the blood of those who came before you. Also, weapons are forbidden."

Serafina's body went ice-cold. She felt Cian paralyze behind her.

"How do you know all of this?" Her voice trembled, as she already prepared herself to run out the open door.

The being lifted it's gloved hand, the door snapping shut behind them. Her voice lilted in a smile to their caged ears.

"Well, because I have been waiting for you Serafina Lucifero."

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(A/n: Because I started a month after the competition initially began and I have work/school I am making the chapters only a little longer than 1500 words each! trust me after I submit it, they will be longer and pieced together instead of spread out :) I just want to be able to submit this because I truly believe in this story!