In the morning, she woke early, as she always did. She stretched into a blissful arch to pop her joints back in place, but then she recalled she was pressed to a vampire's naked chest and curled back in on herself. The movement hadn't woken him, thank god. The man was out like a light, and she tapped his forehead just to make sure he was really out, but she didn't linger because she was really naked.

His hand on her hip was light, and she took a moment to just look at him while he wasn't awake to judge her. He didn't breathe, so he was completely still, but he had a sort of statuesque beauty. Without his lips rolled back above his fangs, they were a gentle shade of pink and soft looking, and the darkness of his hair contrasted with the smooth apricot of his defined cheeks and shuttered eyelids. The angles from his cheekbones were so flat that she wanted to touch his face to see if he had any fat on them, but she refrained.

She needed clothes, even if it was a table cloth tied around her. Slipping out from under his hold on her hip, she set his hand against his chest and pulled the covers back up over him. The robe by itself didn't keep her as warm as being against his body, and she resisted the urge to dive back under the covers as cold hair crawled goosebumps up her arms. With a shiver, she took her first step into his room, but she stopped short as she swore she was staring down at her laundry basket.

Before the evil order of mages had incarcerated her, she had just finished her laundry. Had she known that was going to be her final act in life, she'd have done something more productive like donate some money to hungry kids or plant a tree. Another box of random things sat next to the basket, and she rifled through it until she found her mp3 player and headphones. It had been on the charger when she'd left, so it was full when she turned it on.

She headed back to her laundry basket and found her sweatpants on the bottom, some underwear, and her normal morning shirt. If she didn't set the world record for fastest time getting dressed then it had gone to that guy who dreamed about giving speeches naked when clothes finally appeared. It was so nice to feel fabric against her skin after being a half-naked offering, and she smiled as she held her mp3 player to her chest. It was her old friend, always drowning out her stress and fears.

"You seem happy." The vampire's voice came from behind her, and she turned to find him lying on his back and looking up at her. He was at the edge of the bed with his head hanging over to examine her again, and she had to be upside down to him.

"Do you have a name?" Mer asked so that she wasn't calling him the vampire.

"No." His expression didn't change.

"You know, I almost believed you." She tried to look at him stoically, but it was difficult to be that emotionally dull and a smile tugged at her lips.

"Sorry, I'll try to be more serious next time."

She couldn't stop herself from laughing. Dammit. Somehow he'd won that one.

What in the world was this guy?

"My name is Remus, but those close to me call me Rush."

"Rush it is." Mer smiled, though it was strange to be looking at him upside-down. For a vampire, it likely made no difference how he saw her. They did have better sight, hearing, and heightened senses. "Did you rob my house?" She knew the mages hadn't sent him her stuff. They expected her to be dead by now.

"I did so while you were sleeping. Tracing your unique magical energy back to your home was not difficult."

Mer froze as she thought about him going into her house at night. "You didn't... harm anyone, did you?" Though her aunt and uncle had been forced to give her up, it had not been without a significant fight. After her mother and father had paid the ultimate price for the mage houses, giving her over to the same monsters was a slap to their faces.

"No. The house was empty."

At least no one was hurt then.

"I would also not harm your family," Rush said, drawing her attention back up to his eyes.

"Isn't my family like enemy number one to your kind?"

Rush was silent a moment. "Let me rephrase. I would not have harmed the people you live with under the protection of the societal peace treaty."

Of course. That piece of paper.

Clearly, he might harm her family. The Aurions were strong mages and active in eradicating the dark creatures' houses. While they didn't want an all-out war with vampires right now, they did want them dead. Well, more dead than undead.

Mer wandered away from him toward her box and went through it until she found her sneakers, and she slipped them on with a pair of socks from the basket.

"Preparing to run from me?" Rush asked, and she realized this looked strange.

"No, I always run early in the morning." Mer sighed as she realized that was not something she should expect him to allow.

"I see. Running is difficult in this terrain." Right. "Would you like to run where you are used to?" That was the strangest question she'd heard from him yet, and the expression must have displayed on her face because he spoke again. "This castle is but a transportation spell away from anywhere, and I can ferry you to where you'd like to go."

"You'd allow me to go home?" Why?

"I don't see why not. Are you not intending to return here if I allow that?"

"No. I'll come back." Where else would she go? If the mages found out she'd run away, they'd be forced to return her. That would be hell on earth, hiding from them.

"Would it be bothersome if I accompanied you?"

It was expected. "The daylight won't bother you?"

"You needn't worry about me." Faster than she could follow, he was up next to her, fully dressed in a lavishly decorated white silk shirt, black dress pants, and normal enough black shoes.

This vampire was going to visit her hometown? It was an unreal thought as she had never really known any of the dark creatures. His hand touched hers with familiar ice, and energy spun around her as if he were smothering her, but in an instant, she was outside in the morning breeze at the end of her block. It was so early that no one was out, and everything was the same as she'd left it.

Yesterday, she'd thought she'd never see her street again, and yet, here she was. The Carlsons had all their children's toys littering the yard, the tree on her block still had a branch cracked and leaning on the ground that no one wanted to fix, and the smell of the nearby bakery wafted sweetness into her nostrils. Man was she starving.

A knock on her head had her angling her chin up to Rush, and she accepted a water bottle as he handed it down to her. "This was in you room as well. I filled it for you."

It was a water bottle from her school that she'd taken on all of her runs since the year had begun, and the words on it slowly became unreadable. Tears overflowed her eyes to slide down her cheeks, and she lifted her arm to wipe them away.

"Did I upset you?" Rush asked. The words said by any normal person would have been with concern, but he said them as if he was stating the time of day.

Even so. "No. I just thought I would never see home again. Thank you, Rush." This vampire was doing much more than needed to accommodate her, and she hadn't the faintest why he was even bothering.

"Enjoy your run. I'll be out of sight." After saying so, he was gone like a snap.

There was no movement, just one second he was there, an imposing silent mass of muscle and fangs, and then he was the cool fall air. It wasn't like her to waste time, so she started her stretches. Leaning and pulling her muscles, she loosened her legs, back, and shoulders before she jogged a bit in place and then took off into her neighborhood.

Though it was her normal run, she wasn't in her normal train of thought. As her feet hit the pavement and pressed forward, she put too much energy going into it. Everything spun in her mind, mostly the situation she was in and what the people who she'd called family had done to her. There was a lot of anger still but more confusion on just what exactly she was now.

Certainly, the paper for her English class wasn't getting done, and she couldn't really go home because her aunt and uncle would think she'd escaped. Unable to do any sort of magic, she wasn't a mage, but she was now owned by a vampire. The creature took her ownership very lightly though. Here she was, running through her own town, and though she had been his to do with what he pleased, he hadn't taken advantage of her nor drank her blood.

That was not likely to last. Rush would expect her to lie under his fangs, if not under his body as well. It wasn't like she was a wimp for pain or anything, but the thought of his face contorting in hunger and plunging his fangs into her neck terrified her. Rush terrified her.

The way he was so unbearably calm numbed a lot of it, but she had been with him for one night. Tonight was like to be a rude awakening when she was strong enough to feed him her blood. There was no way she was going to be ready for that, and running harder did not numb the feeling of her impending doom. It didn't change anything, but man did it exhaust her legs.

She panted in front of the coffee shop she normally stopped in after her morning runs. She'd pushed herself way too hard and her legs were wobbly. The water had disintegrated a while ago, and she needed some calories, a lot of calories. There was nothing like coffee, and she walked in to find Paul working the register like he did every morning.

"Mer, good morning. Your usual?" Going to the coffee machine, he'd already started making it before she realized that she didn't have money.

~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 1816