Closed.

Since when was the coffee shop closed on Saturday? Mer pressed her head to the glass with a sigh. What was she supposed to do now? Calling Rush to wake him up would just be rude. Before he'd left her here, he'd informed her that if she called to him with magic, he would hear and come for her. But, what would she do at his castle anyway? Rush had already indicated that he slept better without her around. Though he'd slept just fine last night.

Waking him had been horrendous. Even after she'd woken up and the sun was crawling into the sky he hadn't stirred. The sun was like tiny lead weights on his eyelids. How he'd woken up the first time to sit at the coffee shop was beyond her. She'd gotten dressed and then been playing with the book he'd given her when he'd finally opened his eyes. It had been almost an hour since she'd given up trying to wake him.

Then he hadn't even said anything to her beyond how to contact him, just extended his hand and whisked her away here, a block from the coffee house. At least she still had the small backpack she'd put together before she left. It just had her wallet in it, her water bottle, her iPod and now Darius Shade's book.

But the café was closed.

Paul never closed the coffee shop. She hoped he was okay.

While being the guy who sold her coffee each and every morning, Paul was much more than that to her. His caring and extroverted personality had drawn her in a very long time ago, just as much as his strange fashion taste.

Paul dyed his hair forest green at the top and it turned to black as it wound down to his neck. Since he always had it up at the coffee shop, she had often reached for it as a child, wanting to tug on it. Paul had promptly given her denying stares and gone about his business. When she was younger, he'd been more normal looking, but as she'd grown up, he'd added a small stud in his nose, a few loops in one of his ears, and tattoos that crawled up his arms.

Not only that, but Paul had been her confidant since she was twelve. God, the man knew every crush she'd ever had, every heartbreak, and every time she'd failed a test and cried before bringing it home. When she'd been upset, he'd given her cookies and things to cheer her up. If anyone was a close friend, it was Paul. Hell, the man closed shop and walked her home on days she had jitters.

That was what she used to call them. Sometimes, she just got an ominous feeling and she hid out in his coffee shop until he left the counter. Knowing about the supernatural had terrified her when she was younger, though she'd never seen anyone of the sort. Whenever she'd come by and said she felt like a monster was around, Paul had put down everything, held her hand, and walked her home.

That had earned him some stares, but Paul never cared. It was strange for a man like him to be holding the hand of a child, just as strange as it was for him to hold her hand in middle school, and high school. Though the days became less and less, she'd even as recently as last year crawled into his coffee shop and huffed in a corner when she hadn't felt well. The last time he'd offered to hold her hand and walk her home, she'd turned him down, claiming she was too old.

Paul had laughed.

They'd ended up going home together anyway, despite her protests.

In fact, Paul had never not been here when she'd sought him out. It was painful in her chest as she touched the window. Too much was changing for her right now, and now Paul wasn't here. It's not like she always threw everything that was happening at him, but for almost ten years she'd sat in his coffee shop. Even when she didn't want to talk, she sat there in silence at a booth, and Paul brought her something and just walked away. The man had an uncanny ability of knowing when she needed someone to gush to and when she wanted to be left alone. It also never seemed to bother him either way.

Man, where would she go without his coffee shop.

The school seemed like a bad idea, but she had her ID on her. Maybe she could curl up in the library or something. The worst she could do there was blow up books, right? As noon rose, she would have to find a building to shelter in or she'd be a cd's skipping track with Rush.

Sighing, she watched her breath as it was visible on the morning air. It was abnormally cold today. Fall hadn't even set in, but she was starting to feel stiff. Today, she'd worn a light jacket and normal clothes, a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Without her run, she didn't have her warm sweatpants or her insulating coat.

"Meredith?"

Mer spun around on her name, and she swelled with happiness as she saw Paul standing a few feet from her. Excited to see him and yet trying not to feel like a horrible groupie, she examined him in a long black coat that went to his knees. With his hair down trailing over his light blue scarf, he looked much cozier than she did.

"I didn't realize you were closed today," Mer said normally, until she noticed the expression on Paul's face. Why did he look so relieved to see her? There was silence as he looked at her, an unspoken expression boring into her.

"I'm sorry, Meredith. I had not expected to see you here."

Oh... "If you're busy, don't be bothered by me. I'm just wandering around really."

"I'm never too busy for you, Mer. I meant that I heard your aunt and uncle were in the hospital. I just got back from visiting them, and they told me you wouldn't be coming around much anymore." Mer's heart beat harder for a moment as she thought about Lia and Torin.

"Are they okay?" Mer asked, and Paul nodded.

"Good as new."

The mage houses had the best healers for their active mages. People like her, they would push in front of a train, but people they valued, like Lia Aurion, received preferential treatment.

"I wish you'd come to me, Meredith. I could have helped you." Paul walked a few steps next to her with another breath that caused steam to rise in the air.

"Help with what?"

Paul was giving her that look he had often given her when she whined about getting an eighty-five on something. That, are you really serious, look.

"The vampires, Meredith." Paul shook his head as if she were crazy, but Mer blanked at him.

What did Paul know about vampires? All he'd ever talked to her about was coffee, school, and boys. His mentioning anything supernatural had her taking a small step away from him, something that did not go unnoticed.

"Mer..."

"So, what are you? A tool for the mages?" Mer accused, but he just gave her a look of, now really.

"No, Mer. I don't like the mages, and they don't like me. I'm not in their pocket."

"You're not a vampire, I can't feel dark energy on you."

Paul snorted. "Definitely not. I like the sun too much."

Mer narrowed her eyes at him.

"All that aside, I'm exceptionally happy to see you, Meredith. After what your aunt told me, I thought you'd be dead. I couldn't bring myself to smile at people today, so I left the coffeehouse closed."

Oh... More than asking pointed accusing questions of Paul, she should have considered he might be worried about her, knowing about vampires and all.

"How much do you know?" Mer settled on, and Paul let out another snort.

"Mer, I'm not talking to you on the street about it. Come to my place. We can talk there."

"Stranger danger," Mer teased and Paul smiled, waving a hand in the air at her as if to get her to stop, and then he walked past her.

Paul's house, or apartment rather, wasn't too far. On the third floor, Paul opened it without even unlocking it, and she stepped in. Loosening his scarf, he hung it on the wall with his coat and walked off into whatever kitchen he had.

Well, they had.

Mer's eyes had yet to leave those of the man who was sitting on the couch. Blazing blue in her direction, they were pinned to her, and the man had no shirt to speak of. And he was ripped. This guy looked like a model for men's fitness magazine, with smooth wound arms and pecs, and abs that would make a bodybuilder jealous.

He was also holding a potato ship halfway to his mouth, his own agape, staring at her as if someone had just let loose a lioness on children. His hair was light blond and choppy, running down to his shoulders, much like Paul's. Unlike Paul's though, it was layered and stuck out in places instead of being a thin flat sheen. There was also an uncanny feeling of dark energy radiating off him.

The place certainly looked like a guy's apartment, with food wrappers all over the living room, things strewn about, and little order to the shelves and couches. Noticing her eyeing the place and him, the man grabbed his shirt, which was on the couch. Slipping it over his chest, he leered back at her silently.

"That doesn't do much." Mer informed him with a chuckle. "That thing is tighter than my prom dress would be on you."

The man didn't share her humor and pulled his legs up onto the couch in a defensive crouch. "What are you?" The man asked in a rolling deep voice. It was much lower than Paul's easy going tone.

"What am I? I'm not the one reeking of dark energy," Mer said pointedly.

"I'm in my home. I can very well be whatever I want. I'm not in your living room ogling your chest."

How could she not ogle it? Like chiseled butter it was smooth, soft, tanned cream and if she didn't stop soon, she'd start drooling. This man made Rush look lackluster, which took some doing.

"You left it open for the world to see. Don't blame me."

The man let out a condescending breath ,almost a hiss, though it wasn't one. "Didn't think letting me know you had company was necessary?" The man growled over to Paul who had sank into the depths on the apartment, leaving her alone with him.

"No." Paul called after a moment, and she chuckled as he went through things in some of the other rooms. Clearly, he was cleaning up the place, and he made a sweep of the living room, grabbing all the wrappers. When he did, the man took his potato chips he was still eating and held them protectively to his chest. Paul laughed at his bitter stare. "This is Caelan. I just call him Cael. He's a lycanthrope." Paul walked away almost as fast as he had stopped by, and her eyes widened looking at Caelan's heavily muscled form.

"You're a werewolf?" Mer asked excitedly, but he just continued to glare at her. "Do you turn into a wolf when the moon is full?" The man stared at her in silence. "How about silver bullets? Are those effective?"

"Paul! What looney bin did you find this chick in?"

Paul laughed heavily from the other room.

"I'm serious. She just asked me if I dislike silver!"

"Well, you do," Paul said, returning to his roommate where he plopped on the couch next to him. He ushered her to the recliner kiddy corner to their couch and she sat on it, looking over to Caelan who was at her right. "Mer, Lycanthropes don't just see the moon and morph uncontrollably. Explain it to her, Cael."

Mer didn't expect him to comply as he looked at Paul with a seriously dangerous glare, but then he turned to her and spoke.

"A Lycanthropes' power does wane and wax with the moon cycles. As it becomes full we aren't forced to change. It's more like as the moon grows in brightness you start to get an itch you can't scratch unless you allow the change to take you over. So really, we don't have to, but it drives us half mad if we don't give in to our Lycan halves. And, no, I don't turn into an adorable house pet. Our forms are half man and half beast, nothing you'd want to see with regularity." Caelan paused. "And, yes, as Paul said, silver is highly toxic to my body. Is that sufficient?" Caelan turned to Paul and he nodded with a smile. Released of his obligation, Cael resumed eating his potato chips, eyeing her unpleasantly.

"You'll have to forgive Cael. He's not fond of other people for good reason." Paul attempted to make her feel better about his roommate's cold and unfriendly disposition. What fault of it was Caelan's though? She was the one who had walked in on him half naked with a bag of chips.

"I was surprised he told me about himself. From the way he was treating me, I did not expect him to share information about himself so freely. I mean the books are pretty scarce about information regarding them."

"Well, that's partly because they are dying out. I'm not sure I've personally met a werewolf. Neither has Cael. It's really up in the air to whether or not there are any left, but I'm sure there are. Stories are too prevalent for them to not have a small collective." Paul seemed to be forgetting that he was sitting next to one. "I just meant that Cael is only half lycanthrope. Also, the reason he answered you is because he didn't have a choice. If I ask him to do something, he has to do it."

"Why?" Mer didn't like the thought of Paul forcing him to do anything, just like she didn't like the thought of Rush forcing her to do something. That seemed like a miserable way to live, but Paul didn't appear to be controlling, as far as she could tell.

"It's not like that. My kind are dying off as well, and Cael is half of my kind. As the leader of what's left of them, Cael is subordinate to me and I protect him. It's nothing sinister, more of a kinship." Paul assured her and she stared hard at him.

"You're not human," Mer concluded, and he nodded. But there was no dark energy coming off him, no magic at all in fact.

"That is because I do not use magic. I am a Nothing."

Wait, she had not said that aloud. Maybe he was just good at guessing. Paul had always been so good at knowing what she was thinking. There was a sinking feeling in her mind as she looked over to him, and he smiled apologetically at her.

"You are correct. I can read your mind." Mer glared at him then, and he chuckled lightly.

Read her mind? Wait... that meant... She had gone to him with everything she'd ever had, thinking awful thoughts more than once that she had not wanted him to know. That meant that when she'd sat in his café angry and despairing about how that jerk at school had used her for sex he'd been listening? Oh god, he could hear her thinking about this now? Someone kill her please, before the embarrassment got to her. That also meant he knew about that horrible crush she'd had on him as a kid, before she'd grown up and realized he was like twenty years older than her.

Hyperventilating, she glanced at Caelan who was staring at her strangely, and she glared at him. Did that mean he had known she had been ogling his chest in her mind? What fault of hers was it he was like the poster boy for some sick swimsuit calendar for women?

Paul started laughing so hard he turned away from them, and she suppressed her racing thoughts before calming down.

"Mer, Cael can't read your mind."

Thank... god... whatever ones existed, thank all of them.

"Allow me to explain–"

"Paul," Caelan cut him off, and Paul looked to his friend who had lowered his eyebrows at him. "I don't know what you think about this girl, but should you really be sharing what we are with her?"

Was her knowing about them dangerous for them?

"Yes, Mer, but I trust you." Paul put his arm on Caelan's shoulder, and he calmed his aggressive stare. "I am referred to as a Nothing. While lycanthropes are very rare, for the Nothings, there are probably less than twenty of us left."

Holy crap. 20? That was like the point at which a species couldn't procreate without everyone getting six toes. Did Paul have six toes?

"Ten," Paul answered her, and she blushed at how childish she was.

"So what cool powers do you have?" Mer asked with an interested smile, and he reflected it back. It was better not to pry about the extinction of his own kind. That had to be terribly sad, especially for Caelan who was half and half of two dying races.

"Well, my kind can read human minds, but we have requirements. In order to do so, we have to know your full name. This is the original reason that mages kept their names hidden. When we were in numbers, we were extremely dangerous weapons and keepers of untold secrets. Not only that, we also need to have consumed your blood, not a lot. Just a taste." Mer stared at him weirdly. "It was when you were really young, I don't bite or anything. I helped you with a skinned knee once."

Right. Paul had been more of a father to her than Torin almost after she'd reached schooling age. Skinned knees, broken hearts, fears, loves, hopes, her dreams... Paul was right; he was a keeper of untold secrets.

"You see how dangerous that can be. We don't rely on magic so we are vulnerable to mages. They hunted us because we could infiltrate, fit in as human aids, and walk away with battle plans, weaknesses, and names, so many names."

~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 3169