A hunter roams here and I know that she's near.

The plants lift their leaves as I enter, crawling toward me with eagerness. They're always hungry for my attention like the prowling creature, the queen of her jungle of television cords, household items, and witch tools.

"Kiki." I rattle a bag of the only thing that seems to delight her. Greasy chicken bones and some disgusting mush of mystery food that my friend who works at the Wawa stuffs together.

She's silent beyond the rattling of the small bell of her collar. This is all a facet of her game, a part of the hunt and I'm the prey.

As long as she's been at my side, this has been our game. She just doesn't know that I've caught on. I know she's hiding behind the vine plant on the cupboard, that right now she's wiggling her rump with paws ready to jump on my shoulders and catch me off guard with a half-faked scream.

But as long as she's happy.

Just as the prophecy of predictability foretells, her paws connect with my shoulders as she holds on to the fabric of my dress, dragging herself upwards until she's resting on my shoulders.

"Kiki, at least you didn't chew through the electric cords again and force me to play Frankenstein."

The bobcat wags her stubbed tail, pressing her soft gray face to my cheek with a loud purr before hurdling off with a springful bound to the messy kitchen table littered with empty cereal boxes and newspapers documenting the gruesome details of the murder capital crimes.

Knowing that my boyfriend had been at the very aid of these crimes didn't make seeing the stories any better but alas, what more could I do but ignore it and fill Kiki's litterbox with the shreds.

Kiki sits directly on the black-inked image of chalk-drawn outlines and a fair amount of police tape. With a silent thank you, she lifts her paw, tugging at the grease-dripping bag.

"Be patient."

Finding a bowl in the cupboard, I fill it with the food almost faster than it takes for Kiki to bury her head in the mountain.

"Enjoy." I turn and head towards the hallway, through the mess of clothes and trinkets thrown about here and there. Kimora lays sprawled out on the couch of our den, playing her thousandth game of Pacman on the box tv with a wolf dreamcatcher blanket hiding the window.

"Your boyfriend is still hibernating."

With a loser screen loaded up and a half-eaten pop tart in her mouth, her eyes glow with humor.

"And you're still losing."

"At life or this video game because I'm quite unsure?" With a gulp, she's got the entire sweet snack down her throat.

Rolling my eyes, I leave her with the last words and the theme song of yet another game of Pacman.

"Oh my darling, oh my love, my sweet Angel." The woman sings, deepening her voice to the beeps and rings of the television.

Kimora laughs, her voice rattling through the hallway. Kimora seemed quite unbothered by the murders at the hands of the vampires, brushing it off as a necessity, comparing it to the way humans eat animals.

Or the way that we take from mother earth for our practices.

It's hard to judge Kimora, the same as it would be hard for me to judge Star for leaving the coven and finding a filling for the hole in her heart with David. Neither judged me for my behavior, keeping my secret from the self-appointed leader, Darla.

I find my door decorated in vines, clovers and little patches of moss that collect under the doorknob and the ridges. A new paint job of wintergreen would do well, but the browning of the vines is worrying. Darkness and this much at that will kill them, even magic can't compete with the power of natural sunlight.

In the darkness, I slowly open my door, careful to keep any ounce of light from piercing through the void made by attaching black trash bags to the single window in the corner and turning off every light. With a careful click, I shut the door and shiver in the complete lack of light.

An emptiness with two beings and one beating heart.

"Dwayne." I softly call into the space, staying out of the way to make sure not to startle him, whether the vampire hangs from the ceiling by his feet from the fan or tucked away in my bed where I left him.

I expect for him to remain silent in his daytime slumber but he stirs, the rustle of my bed drawing me to the middle of the room with careful steps, moving pass resting plants that reach towards me at every side like I'm a beacon of life.

His tired voice, still as soft as silk welcomes me. "Ang? Is it night again?"

I shake my head, forgetting that he can't see me. "No, daylight still rages but soon."

The form huddled in my bed moves, discarding the blankets and leaning onto me. His weight lays heavy on me, but it feels more like a protection than a nuance. His muscles flex against my skin as I fall into him as well, ignoring the cold of his skin and the soft tickling of his thick sheets of long hair.

"I'm sorry." Dwayne rumbles, his fingers lacing through mine.

"For?"

"Everything."

I open my mouth to speak against his laments but I don't know what to say.

"I suppose you're going to elaborate." I whisper.

"If I never bothered you that night on the boardwalk, if I never walked you to the beach and let the sound of the ocean draw us closer, you wouldn't have to go through this."

"You know we would have met anyway." I say silently. "The ocean isn't responsible for us, we're responsible for us."

Dwayne stays reserved, his hunger burning the ambiance. I can feel it as if it's my own. My curse, the power to feel the pain of another, the desire and the fall. While Kimora could see the past, I could feel the present.

I felt it when the members of the coven of the bluff died, one by one, I felt as the flames seared through their bodies. I felt as the ropes tightened around their necks. And I did nothing but lay in the arms of Dwayne, brushing it off as nothing.

Kimora isn't the evil that the other covens seek to exploit. I am.

But they mustn't know. No one must know.

Kimora walked to danger without an ounce of fear while I cowered in it. No wonder why Ruth found her in her final moments before being cast into the sea, she knew Kimora was brave.

"When was the last time you hunted?"

"Alone?" He asks. "Or with my brothers?"

"Doesn't matter."

He doesn't respond but his silence sends a resounding answer. Last I saw Dwayne in the light, his tanned skin was gradually turning pale with a ghostly ash tint, his brown eyes losing the life that only blood could grant him back.

"You haven't fed." I hold his hand tighter.

His deep voice speaks with disappointment. "No, but I'm fine. I know you don't like it when I hunt but I'll find some surf loser somewhere tonight after I give Laddie his gift. It's nothing serious really."

"That's the most you've ever spoken in one go. Your head is really getting messed up." I try to joke but the air stays still.

"Oh."

"You have to feed, I get it."

"Okay."

I pull my hand away from his, removing the hundreds of sea glass and animal bone bracelets he'd given me on different occasions, each one more important than the next. Placing them on the bed, I offer him my exposed wrist.

"Drink, Dwayne."

I can hear the voice of Darla cursing me to the heavens for doing such a thing, for taking such a step with a vampire. Even though Darla loved Marko, she kept him at a distance. Not even Paul and Kimora walked this close to the boundary between witches and vampires.

Star had, but only after she left the coven. She had become a half vampire but this, becoming a blood slave was different. We have engaged in such behavior before but to keep doing it was a push. Kimora kept our secret but not without warning.

"No." His voice is vicious.

"Drink." I push my wrist close to his lips which brush against my skin with a soft electric tingle.

"I can't do that, Angel." Dwayne stays firm though I can feel his hunger, his primal instincts begging to feed on the magical blood that flows through my veins.

"But you can, but you will." I beg.

"Angel-." His cold palms find my face, tugging my face to his but I remain still, as hard as a stone.

"Please." My voice cracks.

He stops, dropping his gentle hand from my face.

Almost as if that gentle plea had snapped his guard in half, his eyes flash in the darkness, filling me with fear. The yellow circles are the last thing I see before a sharp pain rips through my body and the magic running through my veins hiss and coil with a burning rage.

It taunts me and calls me a traitor. It mocks me for giving my gift from mother earth to a beast of the darkness, for feeding her daughters to the dogs because of fear as it had happened to my family.

I hide in the cupboard again as the hunters break through my family's shop, torching everything and killing everyone from my parents, my siblings, their familiars, the family dog, and even the tourist who had come for a palm reading.

That day I lost the fight part of my soul and when I met Dwayne, I felt safe again. Something in his silence, in his agile prowess and honey-brown eyes was like a shield.

I'm that child in a cupboard but with Dwayne, the tables turn. I dream of him clawing one attacker and biting another. I see my mother chant as plants wrap around one's throat and my father throws daggers with his mind.

My uncles and aunts wield the flames. Their familiars leap with ferocious growls and the family doberman barks to the top of his lungs. Even the tourist fights with an enchantment book.

I fight.

My stomach knots with horror as the dream fades and the reality hit me like a stone to the chest. With guilt as the magic runs away from the vampire's sucking as he becomes more aggressive and I hold back a scream.

Kimora would gawk.

Darla would stake him.

Through the darkness, my plants crawl with hunger as they want a piece of me too.

And I'm all theirs. I belong to the plants, to Dwayne, to Mother Earth, to the souls of the sea, to the coven, to the rage, to the guilt, and never to myself.

My magic breaks free as Dwayne hisses and snarls, pulling himself from my skin.

An explosive of chartreuse green lights up everything, dancing on the leaves of ivy, the steams of bamboo, the petals of daisies, and the pictures of my long-dead family, their dark brown faces alight before fading away as if they or the frames had ever existed.

Then it fades.

Dwayne shrieks at the light, his claws shrinking as he burrows in my blankets, hissing and grappling at the air.

"Dwayne!" I call to him, running my fingers down the rough skin of his arms as he covers his eyes with his hands.

He groans as my head twirls, the loss of blood settling in. The world of black twirls around me, dragging me back down until I'm laying on the vampire's chest, the both of us in agony. His trinket necklace jingles as I push it out of the way.

"I don't want to interrupt whatever you two have going on, either it's my first thought or my second but whatever it is, just let me know if you're okay." Kimora asks from the door.

"I'm fine, Kimora." I force myself to say through the pain.

Dwayne groans, grabbing me and holding me tight.

"Dwayne got into the sunlight?" She asks.

A door opens for me to get away from the truth.

A soft clawing on the door, constant and accompanied by a chirping mew lets me know that the pain and agony not only affected me.

"The sun is a bitch." Dwayne snarls.