The skin on her wrists chaffed the more she moved, but Mer still adjusted herself for the hundredth time that evening. It was like a nervous tick–checking once every twenty minutes or so to see if her chains would get any looser. They sure weren't coming out of the post despite the wood looking like it was from medieval times. , but that had only given her bruises as bracelets and worn her out so badly that she couldn't hold herself up.

Chaining her sitting down would have been too much for them.

A gust of wind whipped by, and she shivered as a breath of fall air snuck between the crevices of her scant clothing and skin. She'd never been one for camping, and even if, she'd never have done it in the scraps of fabric that covered her groin and chest. It was ceremonial offering garb, as the stupid robed mages had called it before they'd stripped her down. Mer had bitten one of their hands and tried to neuter the other, but he'd managed to salvage one of his testicles from her knee strike.

They'd held her down after that to keep her from maiming any more of them, and she'd screamed profanities the whole time. That anger had faded an hour ago. It was hard to hold onto while hanging from a post in the middle of the forested wilderness awaiting the beast that was coming for her.

It wasn't fair.

She'd stayed out of magic, left behind the world that had taken her parents from her for something peaceful. Well, perhaps calculus and cramming sixteen credit hours into her brain a semester wasn't peaceful, but it was better than waiting for some creature of the night to haul her off to its lair and suck her dry.

While she'd kept out of the world of magic, she knew about it. There had been so many books in her father's library, and she'd often lost herself in them. They were remnants of the family she'd lost before she could remember their smiles or warm embraces. All she'd known was her aunt and uncle's house, but they'd loved her like any parent would have.

Luna, her aunt, was a grand mage, one of the most powerful they had, and the order had needed to subdue her to take Mer away. Mer didn't like to focus on the image of her aunt face down on the rugs, her moonlight hair disheveled and splayed out as they locked her wrists in magic-binding shackles. They put a knee on her back to keep her still, and Luna had sworn up a storm too; Mer had gotten her colorful language from somebody. But Luna had also cried, fell into bitter tears and wept as her uncle cradled her and watched them haul her off. Tears had yet to pay Mer a visit.

Maybe she was in shock? It was something. Hell, the fear hadn't even sank in yet. It was more like rage followed by despair and exhaustion over the hours that she watched the sun roll lower until it now peeked over the trees.

It was the first time Mer wished she knew any magic. Not like it would help her escape her manacles, but it might give her a fighting chance against this creature. She was payment for a transgression against its house, so it wasn't coming down the side of the mountain to offer her dinner and some real clothes. It was going to drain her of her life and leave her corpse in the dirt.

That's why there was so much skin to choose from. The white slip of silk wrapped her hips and dragged on the ground, but it showed her legs off, hip to foot, like a juicy chicken tender. At least that part covered her groin. The top was horrendous. One sheer layer wrapped around her chest and left her entire midriff and shoulders on display. Worse than all of that, they'd taken her bra and it was so cold that her nipples were hard as rocks and didn't leave much to the imagination.

This was not how she imagined herself going out, not that she'd given her end a lot of thought. Nothing aside from how she might die from a caffeine overdose someday. She was still in denial and avoiding thinking about it. Some part of her wanted this damn blood sucker to show up just so she could get out of these manacles, but what if he drained her in them and she was forced to fade away stuck on this–

Mer shook her head. There wasn't much time before it came now. The moment the sun kissed the horizon goodbye, the night would come alive with his kind. Vampires. All the romanticized movies and novels flashed before her eyes, and each and every one fell away like crushed glass. So much fiction. Some things held true. This man was going to drink her like an alcoholic would a martini when no one was looking, but it wasn't going to be fluffy clouds and ecstasy. Predators biting into soft skin hurt, and she wasn't sure how so many books had gotten that wrong. Seemed like common sense.

It wasn't even like she could pretend to like him and wait till the sun came up to fry him either. Killing a creature of the night wasn't as easy as opening some curtains. The sun didn't cause them to go up like dry tinder mostly because they weren't made of old paper. Daytime was taxing, but no more than to the normal closet nerd.

A stake through the heart was essentially useless. According to her books, if you obliterated a vampire's heart it would slowly perish unless rejuvenated with a lot of blood. But they were vampires, not humans. Instead of a juicy, living, beating heart, they had more like a shriveled up kiwi, and it was so small it was impossible to really... stake it. Even then, they would regenerate instantly.

Darkness crept over the trees and fell on her like an icy blanket as the sun finally gasped its last breaths, the shadows of branches reaching and scrabbling for their last moments before they melded into the abyss. What did thinking about vampires do? She was powerless to kill or fight them, and she had no place to escape even if she did. This was her fate because she was an Aurion, the last heiress to a powerful line of mages who had fallen in battle. It was her blood that had been demanded to pay for the price of the vampire lost, and since she had refused to dance to the mages' tune, she was otherwise useless to them.

With the rustle of the trees and crunch of fallen leaves, she knew it was coming for her, and she was dressed like a hooker looking for a good time. Mer clenched her legs together as she tried to shake the darker thoughts away, things she didn't want to think but always came back. It finally kicked in some of that fear that had been hiding. Some sick thing prying her legs open and forcing itself inside of her while it drank from whatever open skin it pleased.

She was going to throw up. Hold it down, hold it down.

Each snap of a twigs and squish of leaves heralded its approach, and she was starting to panic. The woods spun around her, but she knew that was just because she was hyperventilating. She held her breath and closed her eyes to stop everything, but then her mind just spiraled into worse places–hot breath on her skin, ice pressing all over her body, and pain, lots of pain. What if it wanted to hurt her in revenge for its fallen relative?

"If you don't breathe, you will die." A calm voice sounded in her ears.

Mer snapped her attention up to topaz-flecked emerald eyes so close to her face that she jerked back and whacked her head on the wood. A groan crawled out of her lips, and any normal person would have laughed at her, but the thing just stared with little to no emotion. The watching she could have handled, maybe. It was the looking over her that got her heart pounding. The thing crawled its eyes down her face to linger on her neck before climbing the hills on her chest and dipping lower to her clenched legs and bare thighs. The entire time, it was as if worms wriggled over her skin.

"It was not my intention to surprise you," the man said in complete monotone. An earring glinted in its left ear, dangling a long pointed ruby, and chestnut hair ticked its forehead in little shark teeth. "I was worried you were attempting to take your life, which is against the agreement for your sacrifice."

Against the agreements? Sorry she hadn't read the fine print. It was impossible to glare with it so close that if it respired, she would feel it on her face. And it said nothing, just stared silently while she racked her mind for options. About all she could do was spit in its face or beg, and neither seemed appealing, so all she managed was a squeak when he moved closer.

A clink sounded but didn't register until her knees bashed into the stone dais. Mer let out a tight breath of pain as she did her best not to curse. Swearing at the guy was a bad idea too, but she was so bruised and tired that all of her limbs were like the inside of a water bed, her muscles sloshing around uselessly.

The thing had only removed the pin that'd held her to the post, and the shackles weighted her hands to the ground as he knelt next to her. Pulling her shoulders in and looking up, she had to traverse a broad chest covered in ornate embroidery, spiraling grey and ivory thread over black silk much thicker than what was draped over her chest, before she found it leaning over her. Did this thing get its jollies from being all over her? There was no where she could move without bumping into an arm or its crouched knees.

It inhaled near her hair that ran in waved chestnut frizz to her shoulders, and she swallowed, but it served to move the lump in her throat none. Vampires had very few reasons to breathe, none of which boded well for her. It was how they sensed things, like snakes flicking their tongues out. Either she was appetizing or he was sizing her up to see if she'd fit comfily under its body.

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Word Count: 1850