Her head throbbed, her knee ached, and her hands were still two lead stones as she woke up, but she felt like she was buried in clouds. It took her another moment to remember where she was, what she was, and what she was with. When reality finally solidified, she sat bolt upright. A draft blew across her completely bare chest, and she squeaked as she pulled the cloud floating around her 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, and when she allowed her hand to explore herself, she discovered that she was completely naked under it. Wonderful.

A shuffling noise drew her attention up to the vampire from before 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 had to ask.

"What did you do to me?" The words crawled out of her mouth. She was naked, which meant its hands had been on her to strip her at the least.

"I tried to rouse you," the thing said, setting down its paper and looking over to her. "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's voice would have been acid if she were not so terrified, and naked. She was completely naked in front of a vampire who was supposed to be accepting her as a sacrifice.

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

"What else–"

"I merely bathed you." It cut her off, its voice still lacking any inflection. That must be the normal way it spoke. It wasn't as if creatures of the dark were highly emotional anyway.

With a need to confirm everything it uttered, she touching her hair and did find it less grimy than the day before. The long, frizzy chestnut curls ran to her should blades, and it wasn't the funnest 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 picked up on her thoughts quickly, but it wasn't as if she was trying to hide them.

Mer 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 that doom style real quickly. 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.

"Did you enjoy stripping and bathing me?" Mer more of accused than asked as she drifted back to the monster on the cushy recliner. Thinking of the thing's fingers on her skin made her sick. Waking up with woodchips in her teeth and dirt caking her skin may or may not have been more pleasant than waking up naked wrapped in a thousand dead bunnies.

"Your skin is soft."

Mer was going 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 ornate couch she was sitting on as the guy stood from its chair.

Maybe she shouldn't have yelled at her captor.

It walked over in long strides and flopped next to her, where it then sat like a statue for almost a minute. 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.

Mer paused with her mouth open as if to say something, but she closed it. The question seemed in earnest despite lacking inflection. "I didn't want to wear the shackles, I admit, but no one would. What else did I do?" She didn't even know why she cared as she met its gaze. At some point tonight, it was going to be on top of her and its fangs were going to be in her neck. Then there wouldn't be a tomorrow. Speaking with it was just semantics, a delaying tactic, pointless.

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

She stared hard at it. Stopped what?

"You don't, do you?" A perturbed expression graced its face to show emotion for the first time, and it looked away from her at the floor before lowering its eyebrows. "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 again 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, and it had that look of disquiet again.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"None?"

"Nothing."

"Not even something like this?" The vampire held out his hand with a stone in it, and with a smooth flip of his fingers, it turned into a purple flower and bloomed in front of her.

Mer smiled. Oh god, she'd smiled.

"Really, I don't." Smothering her amusement, she found its eyes again, and the slightest of smiles appeared on its face. Sure, it was still stoic and its expression had changed none, but its eyes shone brighter and not in any dark sense.

"I see." More silence as it contemplated had her itching to breathe louder just to fill the void. "This won't hurt you," the thing assured her, but she jerked back as it put his hands on the sides of her head. "Please do not move." It worded it like a request, but was it really?

Unable to look anywhere but directly into his fluctuating emerald eyes, she waited. Pressure built up in her head, compressing her brain until it throbbed, and her stomach heaved as the room flipped on its side. Someone had also shoved their hand into her stomach and pulled it out through her throat so hard that she wasn't sure if she could throw up, though she really wanted to. She shook with tremors that had her eyes bouncing in any direction like a ping pong ball, and in desperation, she tried to move one of its hands away from her head. Though she couldn't really stop it, he lowered his hands when she reached, and the sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"What did I do to deserve that?" Mer spat, and a slow sigh escaped its lips.

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

She was doing that to him? If someone had been doing that to her for a prolonged period of time, she'd have tried to drag them through the dirt too. Somehow, she was doing that on accident?

"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 was not intending to harm you," Mer continued, and it nodded.

"I see that now. I had not intended to appear cruel." Another awkward silence hung between them.

"I'm a sacrifice to you," Mer said, confused with why it was being kind to her.

"To my family. I was not personally affected."

"Oh, then are you only temporarily holding me until I'm sent to whomever was affected?"

"No. You belong to me."

Thanks. The thing couldn't have worded that any slaveyer. "Then you're going to... devour me." It wasn't something she wanted to broach, but this vampire was, though emotionless, not indicating that it was about to viciously kill her.

"Devour? I don't eat humans. I drink their blood." Semantics again.

"Either way." Mer sighed. "You are going to suck me dry and leave me for dead."

"Do you want to die?"

"Why would I want to die?" Mer asked incredulously.

"Well, why would I want to kill you?" There was no expression on its face as he asked, and she shut her mouth.

"Aren't I a sacrifice for whatever transgression my family inflicted upon yours?" Mer was entirely confused.

"Sure, I guess. But that doesn't mean I have to kill you."

So, it didn't intend to kill her, but it had also said nothing about not drinking her blood. In its mind, she belonged to him, whatever that meant to a vampire, and so she was going to be subjected to something–but not killed. Which was worse?

"You look tired. Come." Standing, it offered a hand down to her.

Her hands were lead weights and barely separated by a few inches of chains, but she lifted her hands and set them into his. He lifted her to her feet with a much gentler touch than she'd experienced from him yet, and he eyed her almost warily as they stood side by side.

"If you harm me, my father will rip you into tiny pieces," the thing said, and she became cold.

Mer quaked under his sharp gaze, unsure why it would say something like that until the click and a heavy clank of the shackles as they fell to the floor and rolled at her feet. It 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. Her entire body was lighter without the spellbound shackles, and she'd feared she'd never see a moment without them the moment the mages had shackled her.

"I'm trusting that you are not lying about the magic. If you are lying, you cannot begin to fathom what life will be like for you when I find out." One moment it was apologizing for being cruel, and the next, threatening her with untold misery. This guy made bipolar people look normal.

"You can't count accidental magic," Mer stuttered as she thought about her mind melting.

"Accidental magic will not harm me, and I can tell the difference," it said, walking out of the study, and she pulled her robe tighter against herself as she followed.

They headed up a winding stairwell and down the longest corridor imaginable. While she traversed it all barefoot, maroon plush rugs cushioned her feet and ran down each hallway and up the stairs. The place was really decked out with painted white and grey wall as well as modernized light fixtures built right into the stone. If this thing looked like a castle from the outside, she'd be astonished, but that was what this vampire had called it.

It was a walk, but 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 door. The first thing her eyes lasered on was a bed built for half an army. From the décor–a desk cluttered with paper, shelves packed with more books, some open on a table nearby, and a couch with a few blankets piled up–she could tell it was used quite frequently. There wasn't a speck of dust on any of it either, so it was cleaned regularly too.

A hand on her side snapped her out of her observation, and the vampire pulled her inside the room while he used the other to shut the door. Once she was closed in with it, fear flooded her mind that had her trembling so badly she could barely stand. She expected to bash her knees in again as she started to slide, but he moved to scoop her into its arms before she got that low.

At least it hadn't grabbed her neck this time.

As it laid her on the bed, she held the robe tighter against her body, and it just stared at her.

"You owe me a favor," the thing said, and she started to hyperventilate.

A favor. Right.

It walked away toward a wardrobe, and she sat frozen as it removed its shirt. It was hard to watch and yet impossible to look away as the long black sleeves slid away to reveal arms wrought with muscle. Even without dark magic, the thing could snap her in half without breaking a sweat. It must have removed its shoes earlier because she noticed it was barefoot as it came back to the bed and slipped onto it.

With an assessing look, it noticed her condition and spoke. "Is my chest unattractive?"

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."

Thanks for clarifying.

"I'd merely like to sleep with you."

Was that all?

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

Why was it surprised she was now hostile?

The thing stared at her for a moment and then its eyebrows actually moved upward and then lowered with a strange expression. "You thought I meant sleep as a euphemism for having sex with you." Another pause. "I did not."

"You don't want to have sex with me?" Mer tried to clarify while avoiding euphemisms.

"I did not say that. I said I did not intend to." The statement made her skin crawl again.

"So what do you mean then by sleep with me?" Mer ran her hand up her face with an actual sigh, not some concoction of vampire frustration that this thing emulated. While very literal, it was still a vague term, and her heart stammered as it reached one of its arms out to her. Cold fingers just barely ran against her cheek, and her breath stuttered.

"Come here," it whispered, gently pulling on a piece of her hair that had trailed over her shoulder. The gesture was to tug her closer, but she didn't move.

"I don't want to." Her voice was barely audible.

"I know."

~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 2531