Mer's head throbbed, her knees ached, and her hands were two lead stones as she woke, but she felt like she was buried in clouds. Something soft and warm wrapped her like her aunt's arms when they used to snuggle together on cold winter nights. With her hands laid in front of her face, she stroked the fabric of the plush sleeves like she was petting moonlight bunnies snuggled against her. The fabric drifted lower to reveal the cold, hard metal that chained her, and her heartbeat jumped as the last bits of drowsiness flew away.

If the vampire was here, surely he'd heard the pounding of her heart, yet she was frightened to move. To find she was missing pieces. To give in to the cruelty of reality. In her delay, her gaze lingered on her wrist and the white bandages wrapping it under the manacles. Those had not been there when she'd passed out. That meant the vampire had taken off her manacles to cater to her cut. That was almost decent of him. How hard had she passed out to not notice that though?

Cautiously, she lifted herself into an upright position on what she identified as a black leather couch, but doing so shifted the bunnies and a draft blew across her bare chest. With a squeak, she pulled the cloud over her exposed skin. It was a robe. Maybe a robe. Made from some poor dead animal's white, plush fur. It buried her entire body in warm bliss, but below, she found herself completely naked.

Wonderful.

A shuffling noise drew her attention up to the vampire leaning back in a recliner and... reading a newspaper? What could possibly interest it? Were there classifieds for vampires seeking other asshole vampires? It didn't acknowledge her, and it was probably better that she stayed out of its notice, but she couldn't help burning a glare into the back of the newsprint.

What had he done to her while she was out?

"I tried to rouse you," the thing said, dropping its paper and looking over as if she'd spoken. "You were out cold, covered in dirt, and I wasn't going to put something that filthy on my upholstery."

Well, excuse her. She wouldn't have been so filthy had he not tried to till the ground with her face.

"So, you took off my clothes?" Mer meant to drip some acid with the words, but they fell out in a nervous jumble. Sitting naked in front of anyone didn't instill confidence.

"What you were wearing wasn't clothing," the vampire replied, and she bit her lip, looking away and tightening every muscle in her face so she didn't crack a bitter smile. Hell, it hadn't been, but she hadn't expected to share any opinions with it.

"I did so merely to bathe you," it added as afterthought, its voice still lacking any inflection, as if that would be reassuring.

Mer touched her hair to confirm and found it less grimy. The frizzy chestnut curls ran to her shoulder blades and weren't the most fun thing to wash. It took a while to dry too, and it was definitely dry.

"I'm not a caveman. I used a hairdryer." It continued to pick up on her thoughts.

A hairdryer meant electricity, and she angled her gaze to her surroundings for just a moment. She had expected a castle from medieval times, filled with suits of armor and illuminated by old wax candles, but the lights, dim as they were, hung from an electric chandelier. High ceilings gave the place a real vampire's domain feeling, but the painted walls and arrangement of modern furniture cramped the doom style. Shelves lined with books and decorative bookends filled one wall, and the desk in the corner wasn't from Ikea, but it also wasn't whittled by archaic woodworkers.

The grandeur of such things fell flat as Mer's mind wound back to a singular thought.

"Did you enjoy stripping and bathing me?" She accused more than asked as her focus drifted back to the monster on the cushy recliner. She couldn't argue with the comfort of a thousand dead bunnies, but she'd have preferred to wake with woodchips in her teeth and dirt in her hair if it meant he hadn't touched her.

"Your skin is soft." The very edge of its mouth lifted just a millimeter with the words.

Mer resisted the urge to throw up in her mouth.

"You are also a lot less abrasive unconscious."

"You tried to cut my hands off and almost dragged me here. How am I abrasive?"

Mer pressed her back against the leather couch as the vampire stood from its chair. It walked over in long strides before flopping next to her. Its weight dipped the cushions, and she clung to the armrest so she didn't sink closer. It sat like a statue for so long that when it finally twitched its gaze over like an owl with a crick in its neck, she expected the hoohoo.

"You don't know?" it asked. The question seemed in earnest despite lacking inflection.

"I didn't want to wear the shackles, I admit, but no one would." She didn't know why she cared what this prick found abrasive. At some point tonight, it would tire of this act and bury its fangs in her throat. There would be no tomorrow. Speaking with it was just pointless semantics, a delaying tactic to her inevitable end.

"So, you don't realize you've just stopped?"

She searched its calm emerald eyes and emotionless face uselessly for an answer. Stopped what?

"You don't, do you?" A perturbed expression graced its face with rare emotion, the lift of its eyebrows as slight as the widening of his eyes. "I suppose that makes me appear a bit cruel then."

No really.

"I thought you were doing it on purpose. It only started after I spoke to you." Silence pervaded as it pondered. "It's a magic aura of sorts, and it was unbearable to be near you, even with the shackles. They stop spells, not all magic."

"I don't know any magic," Mer insisted.

"Really?" it asked with a look of disquiet.

"Yes."

"None?"

"Nothing."

"Not even something like this?" The vampire held out a smooth river stone, and with a flip of its hand, it changed into a purple flower that bloomed within his fingers.

Mer smiled. Damn it, she'd smiled.

"Really, I don't." Mer smothered her amusement, and the slightest of smiles curled on its face.

"I see."

Further silence filled the room that had her itching to breathe louder just to fill the void. The ringing in her ears got louder each time he powered down. Someone should get one of those buffering circles to display on its forehead when it was attempting thought.

"This won't injure you," the thing assured her as it placed its hands on the sides of her head. They hovered next to her ears, not making contact, but the energy coming off of them made her brain buzz. "Please do not move."

Mer had nowhere she could move unless she back flipped over the armrest, and her knees were definitely not up for that. All she could do was stare directly into his fluctuating emerald eyes as pressure built up in her head. It compressed her brain until it throbbed, and her stomach heaved as the room flipped on its side. It felt like someone had shoved their hand into her stomach and pulled it out through her throat. Mer shook with tremors that had her eyes bouncing around like a ping pong ball, and she lifted a shaky hand in desperation to push him away. Before her skin made contact, he lowered his hands, and the sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"What did I do to deserve that?" Mer spat with muted anger, and a slow sigh escaped its lips like he was a deflating ballon.

"That is how it feels to me now, and how it felt being near you before."

Somehow, she was doing that on accident? If someone had put her in such agony for a prolonged period of time, she'd drag them through the dirt too. Its impatience and irritability made more sense under that light, but her magic had just been trying to protect her.

"You've stopped again," it said.

What sort of messed up game of Red Light, Green Light was this?

"It seems to come and go when you are..." The thing paused. "Hostile? Angry? Upset? I'm not entirely great with emotions."

"I hadn't noticed," Mer said blankly, and though its expression changed none, she could swear its eyes glittered. "I wasn't doing that on purpose," Mer continued, and it nodded.

"I see that now. I had not intended to appear cruel." Another awkward silence hung between them as he flicked his eyes over her. "You look tired. Come." Standing, it offered a hand down to her. It seemed like a kind gesture, so she accepted. He lifted her to her feet with a much gentler touch than expected but remained perilously in her space as they stood side by side.

A click tore her wary gaze from his, and she stepped back to avoid the clank of her shackles as they fell to the floor. The vampire stiffened, as if waiting for her to lunge at him, but she'd be lucky if she could take steps at all.

"Thank you." Mer meant the words, and they eased his tense shoulders. Even if he was about to drag her off to some dungeon and drain her dry, at least for a moment, she could breathe free.

"I'm trusting that you're truly uneducated about magic. If you're lying, you cannot begin to fathom what life will be like when I find out."

One moment it was apologizing for being cruel, and the next, threatening her with untold misery. How balanced.

"This way." it said, walking out of the study, and she pulled her robe tighter as she followed.

They headed up a winding stairwell and down a corridor so long that she teetered from exhaustion. The place was really decked out with painted white and grey walls, modernized light fixtures built right into the stone, and plush, maroon rugs that cushioned her bare feet every step of the way. Their trek ground to a halt as they arrived at a large door, and the vampire opened it with a grinding of wood on stone that didn't sound healthy.

Well, she wasn't escaping out that way.

The first thing her eyes lasered on in the room was a bed built for half an army. From the décor–a desk cluttered with paper, shelves packed with books, some open on a table nearby, and a couch with a few blankets piled up–she could tell the room was used quite frequently. There wasn't a speck of dust either, so it was cleaned often as well. But it was a bedroom.

A hand grazed her side, and she stumbled forward, unfortunately into the room. It shut the door to close them in together, and fear flooded adrenaline through her brittle and bruised joints uselessly as the vampire's eyes darkened from the dim lighting. With nowhere to run, and no way to run, the tremors had her falling in place. She expected to bash her knees again as she started to slide, but he scooped her into his arms before depositing her on the bed.

She closed her eyes then, not ready for what was about to happen. Rapid breaths shook her chest, her pounding heart exacerbated her throbbing headache, and her limbs shook like leaves in a storm. Time passed, but nothing touched her, no callous hands grabbing her or fangs biting into her neck. The lack of action had her prying her eyes open and sweeping the room to find the vampire opening a wardrobe.

It removed its shirt, and it was impossible to look away as the long black sleeves slid down to reveal arms wrought with muscle. Dark magic or not, the thing could snap her in half without breaking a sweat. Barefoot, and with at least his pants still on, it returned to the side of the bed. Mer held her robe tighter around her throat as it skimmed her with an assessing look.

"Is my chest unattractive?" it asked as it trailed his strong fingers over the pale ridges of its muscles.

What sort of question was that? Kiwi heart.

While she couldn't say she wasn't interested in seeing a vampire up close, having only read about its kind for so long, right now was not the time. Plus, in a moment, she was about to be food, or a tool for pleasure, or both.

"You needn't worry so much. You are too weak and malnourished for me to feed from you without doing harm." It paused. "I do not want to harm you."

"Why?" Mer asked in a whisper as she sat up on the bed and kept her robe from opening anywhere indecent. "Aren't I supposed to be payment for" –-Mer swallowed as she hoped the words didn't anger him— "you losing someone?"

"You are payment," he said, shifting his hands into his pockets with a slow sigh.

A sigh from a creature that didn't breathe was farfetched, but she wasn't going to say anything.

"However, if you know no magic, you have never harmed one of my kind." It sat on the bed next to her but kept its hands in his pockets and turned his face in her direction. With the closeness their noses almost touched, and she held her breath. "Women are sacred among my kind. We lose many more than we gain to the change. The female physiology is much more resistant to giving up life than males. As such, I would take no pleasure nor feel any pride in harming one innocent of wrongdoing."

"Yet, you have no intention of letting me go," Mer ground out, though with a lack of understanding more than hatred. There wasn't much to hate about this guy as of yet, though she couldn't say if that would change with each passing moment.

"To do so would disrespect the life the Shade's lost, so no, I cannot release you. You are, for the foreseeable future, mine." The thing couldn't have worded that any slaveyer, but at the same time, he wasn't asserting that position for anything untoward.

Except for the putting her in its bed part.

"You will wish to sleep with me," it said as it noticed her glancing at the stacked pillows and comforters.

Fat chance of that.

"Your aura is hostile again," it grumbled, rubbing its short russet hair with a hand.

Why was he surprised?

The thing stared at her for a moment before its eyebrows moved upward and then lowered with a twist of his lips. "You thought I meant sleep as a euphemism for having sex with you." Another pause. "I did not. I merely meant it will not take you long to desire my body." The bastard flashed her a smirk, one showing off the pointed tips of its fangs. "Until such time, you are welcome to use the couch." With a sweep of its hand, it gestured to the loveseat in the corner, and she did not hesitate.

Hopping off the bed, she skipped over to another leather couch and plopped on it with a desperate need for real rest. By the time she shook out the blankets, the vampire was under his comforters with its eyes closed. She highly doubted he was sleeping as she covered herself and pretended she could remain vigilant. Each passing second dragged her eyelids lower, and she kept opening them again and again, afraid of what dwelled in the darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 2645