The audacity of that vampire. I merely meant it will not take you long to desire my body. The words spun in Mer's head as she lay on the couch for the first hour, constantly peeking out from her two layers of blankets and stack of pillows to see if he'd moved. Man slept like the dead, which tracked considering he was a vampire. It just didn't make sense that it would fall asleep when she was such a danger without shackles. Which meant it was sitting there, waiting, for her to desire his body.

Hell would have to freeze over first.

Which is just what happened.

About the time the owls started hooting outside, tingles ran up her feet that had her rubbing them together. She did her best to tuck her toes into the fabric, but that helped none. The feeling in the tip of her nose went next, and when she twitched it, it didn't feel like it was there anymore. The chills spread down her body until she was downright shivering, and her puffing breath spread a fog around her face. It was enough that she sat up on the couch and leered at the jerk in his bed. Blankets or not, this place was freezing at night.

It had been chilly during the evening when she'd hung on that post, but this was like the inside of a freezer. To warm herself, she slipped her feet off the couch onto a plush rug and paced the floor. Rubbing her arms did little as she dragged the blankets with her, and she paused to stare out the open window that was letting a draft in. They'd gone up enough stairs that she couldn't escape out of it, and it was so cold that shutting the window would just trap it all inside. There was no heat in here to dispel the chill, not even a fireplace to warm the room.

With the deep rugs, her footsteps fell near silent as she walked across the room into direct moonlight. It was so bright up there in the cloudless sky, so big and free. With a sigh of steamy air, she reached her hand up like she could touch it. Memories of her aunt Luna's moonlight magic danced in front of her vision as tears filled the bottom of her eyes. The reach of her slender fingers proved useless as they bathed in the silver light of freedom she'd never again have.

A shadow dimmed the glow, and she stiffened as strong fingers touched hers, outstretched over her shoulder yet dipped under hand so that her fingers just barely touched his palm. It was as icy as the rest of this cursed room. Behind her, the vampire stood against her back, his chest and arm bare, but he remained still and silent. That seemed to be the way he was, a statue with little to say.

"So, you are up," Mer said when nothing better came to mind.

"It is admittedly difficult to sleep with your teeth chattering so loudly." Amusement laced the slow drawl of his even tone. How he managed that with so little inflection had to be magic.

"They wouldn't be doing a jig if it wasn't so damn freezing in here." Mer was about to drop her hand to rub her arms again, but her fingertips felt uncannily warmer against his outstretched palm than when she'd first grazed the ice of his skin. To make sure she wasn't crazy, she slid her fingers across his palm until they were flat against his hand, and it was indeed toasty.

A rumbling against her back had her sinking against him as warmth crawled down his arm that pressed to her wrist before crossing her elbow and resting on her shoulder. Fingers brushed her hair out of the way so he could press his bicep against her face, and ice melted away as the skin heated like coals igniting their first flame. Mer was so cold that she leaned her cheek against his arm before she fully processed what she was doing.

"Do you desire my body?" the prick whispered into her opposite ear, his breath chilled until his cheek pressed to hers. "Denying physical necessity for futile pride is foolish." Now sizzling breath sent a wave of goosebumps down her neck as he spoke so close that he could kiss her throat. Despite that, Mer didn't want to move away and freeze, something he was clearly taking advantage of.

The man was a massage chair, rumbling when he spoke like he had a rock tumbler inside his chest, and warm to soothe all of her sore, stiff muscles. More than anything, the situation seemed like a set up, and as she lowered her raised hand, he was forced to unwind and retract his own. It felt no better having his dangerous hands at her back, but he'd yet to do anything aggressive.

How long would that last if she was in a bed with him? Sure, she was freezing, but she would rather croak as a popsicle than pretend she had any hopes of fighting him off in the sheets.

"I don't want to sleep with you," Mer whispered the words, too afraid to step on the landmine this guy must be hiding but also unable to walk to her doom in silence. As usual, he was silent, and she turned to find him still as stone, his emerald eyes gleaming lighter in the moonlight and his lips open just enough to show the glint of his fangs.

"As a euphemism or literally?" he said, his low voice sounding too much like a hungry leopard waiting for its prey to prance willingly into its jaws. The fact that he was bothering with the discrepancy gave her pause.

"Uhh." The sound fell out of her mouth less than gracefully. She definitely had no interest in sexual relations with her captor, but as for literally, it was hella cold and he was neither ill-mannered nor hard on the eyes. Thus far, he'd been completely respectable, at least after he learned she wasn't doing intentional brain melting.

"I might be open to sleeping next to you if there's nothing inappropriate," Mer mumbled as she fiddled with her fingers, the chill reaching back into them with their distance.

"I realize you may know little of the Shades, Meredith Aurion, but to take from a woman without express consent is the highest crime one can commit in most civilized houses. Vampire, human, or otherwise." He took a step into her but remained a breath away. "Come."

Quicker than she could blink, he disappeared, though she found him in her peripheral vision sitting on the bed with a hand offered, palm up. Taking it was a horrible idea, but so was losing her toes to frostbite. Giving in to stupidity yet maintaining whatever dignity she could, she walked around to the other side of the bed and slid under the comforters. They were as cold as the rest of the room, and she groaned as she locked an eye on where he still sat with his hand offered.

Eventually, he dropped his hand onto his thigh and turned arduously slowly toward her. The blankets shifted as he moved to her side, and she balled her hands in the fabric as he slid so close that she was leaning against his chest. His skin was cold again, and she huffed a breath of defeat as she kept herself separated with the layers of robe. From what she'd experienced, in order for him to warm, they'd have to touch skin on skin, but he was insane if he thought this robe awas going anywhere.

"With your back to me would work best for your comfort," he said, for once his breath not melting her ear, but only because her ear was against his shoulder.

The guy was right, but she still moved slow as a molasses, rolling on her side, taking in a shallow breath that had her swallowing hard, and lowering the back of her robe so that their skin made contact. It was only her shoulders to her lower back, but that felt like giving up everything as the stiff muscles of his back pressed to her soft skin, as he put it.

The blanket fell over her, dropped from his hand, and she jerked as his fingers touched her side. They stopped there, at the edge of where her robe bunched at her front, lingering like daggers but still as a predator waiting to pounce.

"If you don't mind, it will be better if I wrap my arm around you," he said against the side of her face, his warm cheek gliding against hers. "I will merely touch your stomach to warm you, nothing else."

Hell, if he expected her to agree to that verbally, he was crazy, but her body wasn't so much on the same track. She shifted just so much, so the robe had an opening for his hand to slither in, but she was the one that hissed in a breath as his hand touched her frozen navel.

"Are space heaters that unrealistic to you?" Mer growled, but the words sank into a low groan as she settled against him. The heat was warming the blankets too, and she pulled the blanket up over their heads to share the warmth with her frozen nose.

"There are few electrical outlets in the castle," he said simply against the back of her neck, sending fresh goosebumps down her neck

"A convenient arrangement to leave me no other option but your bed." Mer couldn't not say it.

"Sure, these circumstances might seem manipulative if I'd planned for company."

Mer's hold on her bunched robe tightened as she processed just what that meant. "So you planned to kill me?" Mer whispered the question, unsure if she wanted the answer as much as she didn't want to know why he hadn't.

"It is not as if I intended to mercilessly murder a helpless mage. You seem to know so little." The vampire's lips briefly brushed the back of her neck as he spoke, and his sigh of breath stood her hairs on end. "Mages, when offered to a vampire, consider that a death sentence. Anyone else, and I would have been attacked the moment I dropped the pin from the shackle holder. Which is why I changed your shackles. I had not expected them to be functional but a ruse to lure me close to a mage for execution."

"Guess, it was apparent by the dais taking out my knees that I'm a terrible assassin," Mer grumbled as she pulled her knees in closer. With how curled up she was with the blankets wrapped between everything, she felt like a cinnamon roll. Hopefully the vampire didn't agree and take a bite out of her.

"Even if you weren't malnourished, I am not confident you could best a child in a fight."

"Oh please, I could definitely give a toddler a run for their money!" Mer tossed the blanket cocoon off as she sat up in a rush of hurt pride. That lasted as long as it took her to follow the vampire's lowered gaze to where she'd dropped the robe from her chest. With a squeak, she shoved the fluffy thing up over her chest and tossed herself back into the covers

And that asshole sat in the same position the entire time, lying comfortably on the bed, his hand on her side from where it had landed when she shifted. With a huff of anger, she turned back to spit some profanity or something else stupid, but it all melted away as she caught his expression.

"I can pretend I didn't see anything," he said with a chuckle that rolled into a full blown laugh. She'd have wanted to punch him if it did not sound so gentle. There was no condescension or implication, but a strangely muted affection for her outburst. It didn't sound like something that should come from a man who'd planned to end this night in murder.

"You are so heartless," Mer grumbled only for him to smile wider.

"I have a heart," he said simply as he propped his head on a hand. "Do you wish to hear it as proof?" The offer should have had her retorting something intelligent, but she dropped her eyes to his chest with dangerous curiousity. Stupid kiwi heart. She did want to hear it. "Come to me, Meredith." The words ended in a purr that definitely made her want to punch him in the teeth, but she kept in inside as she scooted a bit closer.

She bit the tip of her tongue as he slithered his free hand under her body, but he did so only to set her back down with face leaning on his chest. He slid a folded pillow under her head as her face steamed from the proximity, and with a warm and delicate glide of his hand down her chin, he angled her ear to its pectoral. The position was entirely too intimate, even with the robe keeping her chest from touching his skin directly, and as she calmed her breathing and her pounding heart, slowly but surely, she felt the pitter patter against her ear.

The vampire's heart beat slower than any human could maintain and live, and without even noticing she was doing it, she treaded her fingers over his skin. Like the snap of an asp, he grabbed her hand the moment she dented his skin, and she shrank back from its fangs bared with its lips rolled back aggressively.

"S-sorry. Did I hurt you?" Mer scrambled for words to fix whatever she'd done for the longest moment of her life until he let her hand go. She pulled it close to her chest and planted her eyes on his muscles to avoid his eyebrows crunched down to his nose in what had seemed like anger.

"I'm sorry." The words came thick from his mouth with his eyebrows still crunched near his nose, though his fangs were back behind his lips. "I misinterpreted your actions. I thought you were trying to kill me."

"With my fingertips." Sarcasm coursed through her voice, but it didn't change his upset expression.

"You had them directly over my heart, and you are of one of the strongest mage bloodlines. It would not be difficult in that position."

"I don't know any magic." Mer sighed as depression sank in. Was there anything she could do that wouldn't be perceived as an assassination attempt? Things had just quieted down enough for her to not think he was going to snap and bite off her hand.

"I am sorry," he repeated, pulling the covers snugger around her, and running his hand up through his hair with a sigh.

With the stillness, she settled with her ear still against his chest and her hands wrapped in layers of robe to keep her weapons sheathed. A low rumbling in his chest started again, like the dryer on a delicate load, and she gave up through to her exhaustion. This was not what she'd expected when she'd been given over to the vampires, but it wasn't as brutal as she'd imagined. Strange,scary at times, a little over the boundary of comfortable physical interactions with a stranger, but there was a certain innocence to it. The curiosity of two creatures frightened of one another smothering that fear for just a single moment to share the beating of their hearts.

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Word Count: 2608