-Lucien-

She let out a few drunken, dramatized laughs. Those slow, tantalizing ones that didn't make me at all confident that she was going to cooperate.

Still I sat myself down onto the leather chest at the end of her bed, turning my torsoe and leaning my elbow on the bed itself to face her.

"Of course you would,"She only followed me with her eyes, "You 'n your weird sex brothel would wanna know everything, huh?"

"You understand how fucked up that is, yeah?" I don't take the time to even consider her words. They had no relation to what I was trying to get at.

I truly didn't know why I was trying to begin with.

Trying to reason with her at all let alone while she was drunk.

"Nuh-uh," She defended in the tone of a toddler, attempting to push up her top half "He bought the drinks. It was only fair."

Yeah, that doesn't make it any better. It only further proved the opposite.

"So you're saying that he'd get you drunk and then get you naked for... payment."

I knew I shouldn't just jump to conclusions. I gained less than nothing wondering in the first place, but she wasn't giving me many other conclusions to jump to in terms of this... Gabe.

Here I thought fresh rogues were supposed to be well-versed in the art of basic self-respect. It was what made them complicated pets.

She'd been complicated in her own right, a fighter with almost every single thing so far. The only conclusion I could gain here was that there was just a line where her's ended.

She just looked at me for a moment, eyes void of anything other than how insanely inebriated she was.

"Well when you say it like that, you make it sound like it's a bad thing."

No shit. Nobody does that continuously without bad intent.

Those were the words that made me give up. That made me roll my eyes and ready myself to stand and leave her for the night.

I suppose gaining a few reasons as to why she is the way she is was good enough. I didn't see myself gaining anything other than more annoyance if I stayed to let this continue.

I stopped though, the moment I heard her sniffle, and felt the sudden shift of her disposition.

"I-it'was fine it-... it made him happy."

I honed in on the sudden display before me, watching her visual change that showed me her defense was breaking. That hardened, angry exterior she'd worn since she stepped into my limo for the first time was cracking before me.

Relaxing back into my spot, I simply listened, hoping to find something of use amongst her rambling.

Even from here, I could see those tears starting to swell after she fell fully back onto the bed to stare at the ceiling.

"...I needed him. I-I needed to get out of my house and he waz- he would always let me, a-and I couldn't lose 'im for that."

Her bottom lip trembled through her hoarse words, swallowing hard and exhaling in quick pieces when the first tear fell.

The next words were hushed, full of a near whimpering ache.

"I did everythin I could to keep him happy with me, I don't know what I would've done'f I didn't have him."

Hands balled into fists at her sides, a quick switch of anger that was gone as soon as it arrived.

"You'd think that it would be enough, right? Five years of that would be enouf to...to deserve a... a fucking phone call," She started off strong, but it didn't last her. The last words ended pitifully with her hands covering her face.

Five years of all this...?

"I thought that I did everything right I-I-I trIED to be... Was I just not enough? W-was I..." the words dissipated into nothing.

She just stared upwards with a look conveying an emotion I knew very well.

That wide-eyed blank stare you took as acceptance crept its way in, and drowned you in hopelessness.

I think I found some sort of relief knowing that she wasn't completely clueless, nor proud of the treatment she's endured. If she were really that stupid, then I may have had a bigger problem with her.

Maybe self-respect wasn't completely the root issue with this one then.

"I uzed to think he was all I had, but now he really is all I have left. Dad's dead, Mom disappeared and left me with his psychotic ass years ago... My entire life was gone in a matter of minutes I didn't wan'to agree to in the first place. Now I'm stuck here alone with a sickness vampires would kill for, a Gabe's not even..."

I felt my brows raise just a hair at the few words I unexpectedly related to. That whole mom thing just hit a little too close to home than I was ready for

I didn't know how she ended up in this position of getting her citizenship stripped, and truly I didn't care enough to ask, but this new information she was offering would be something I kept in mind.

Silence overtook her save for her surprisingly quiet sobs and sniffling, not even bothering to wipe her tears before they fell down into her hair or the comforter.

I sat there and waited for a few minutes for her to fill that silence again like she was so good at, but got nothing.

Until she suddenly sat up with her hand over her mouth, brows knitted together over a paling face.

"Oh god," She sounded like she was muttering through a full mouth of food, bringing together what was about to happen.

"Oh don't you dare." I quickly rose to my feet to grab her again by the arms.

I was not waking someone up to come and clean up vomit at this hour and was thus left to use my vampiric speed to drag her and ensure that I wouldn't have to.

Just like that, just as soon as I'd stopped in front of the toilet with her, and the sound of her retching into it began, the effect of her blood were gone.

Like a candle betting blown out, not a hint of it remained.

My next breath strained at the feeling of my typical livelihood returning back to me in a crushing flash.

It was so little blood, I couldn't expect it to last me long at all. Still, I felt betrayed in the weirdest sense by my own body for not conserving it. Not stretching it to make it last.

A stupid hope. Good remedies just tend to breed that I suppose.

I lifted and horizontally straightened my arm, using it to lean into the wall so I could watch her throw up for a third and fourth time.

God that smelled awful.

I grimaced and turned my head to the side as far as I could, enough to where my eye caught itself in the mirror.

Back to gold. That red was nowhere to be seen anymore.

I blew out a long breath to help me deal with the drop, and spot myself from yearning for that feeling her blood brought me all over again.

Instead I looked back to her.

Heaving, coughing, and spitting into the bowl she was clutching like her entire life depended on it.

With the tears still spilling over it was certainly... a look for her.

She was objectively pretty from a human standpoint, though that's not at all the word to describe what I was seeing now.

I waited another two minutes to ensure she was done because I no longer had the energy to be attempting that again.

Using the physical aspects of my vampiric abilities came with a short, but still annoying recovery period. I didn't use my speed or strength unless I absolutely had to, or felt well enough to where I didn't think I'd need a recovery.

When she started leaning and looking like she was about to go limp, I knelt down beside her and flushed the toilet.

"Ya done?" I asked just to make sure, my only response at first being a quiet groan.

She responded with words only after I'd set her arm over my shoulder and around my neck, "I'm never drinking that much again."

"Uhhu," I grabbed her wrist with the arm it dangled by, hooking the other around her back, "Let's hope you remember that decision in the morning."

I slowly lifted us both, feeling her stagger and struggle to stand.

I was both frustrated and accepting of the wait given that her human warmth was the perfect temperature compared to the one my body had fallen back to.

She was on her own for the rest of the cleanup. The second I get her back into that bed, I'm done for the night.

I was more so dragging her than walking with her once we began to move but knew she was at least giving an attempt.

It was a very short distance, so I just dealt with it in exchange for more time to warm up.

"I don't need," She stopped midway through her lie to clear her throat, "Your help."

"You sure that you mean that? I'm more than happy to put you in your wardrobe instead of your bed." I deadpanned

"Noooooo," She drew out the word for a long time, but in a quiet, 30-seconds-away-from-falling-asleep kind of way, making this journey much more bearable.

That was remarkable the last thing she said, falling back to sleep nearly the second she was back in bed.

I turned off her light, closed her door, and began removing my shirt and changing into something that didn't smell like alcohol before retiring to my own bed for the night.