"Remus Shade." Her aunt spat his name every time she said it, and to his face was no exception.

"We asked for the perpetrator. You refused." Rush all but ignored her spite, sitting against the far wall with his arms crossed. Though his position was passive, his eyes were anything but, burning with either loathing, hatred, or both. Rush looked as dangerous as her aunt had warned Mer he was. "The only reason we agreed on an exchange of sacrifices was because the Aurions offered us your direct lineage. Without Darc Aurion's daughter, his line will be extinguished."

Extinguished? Was that what she was? Some flame on a candle to be suffocated until it died.

Rush picked up on her fear and flicked his eyes over to hers in that eerie way vampires did. Emotion she hadn't seen before rolled across them, but it wasn't like the heated ire toward her aunt. Something just as dangerous lingered, possessiveness wound with a desire to devour her. And yes, she meant devour this time. Rush looked like he wanted to consume everything of her, her blood, her soul, her very existence.

Whatever small piece of the man she'd imagined that morning faded quickly back to the beast he was when she was unable to rip her gaze away from his. That was their ability right? Vampires could grab a person's gaze and mold them with their power, destroying them from the inside while they were powerless to flee.

"We are returning now," Rush said, shifting his attention back to her aunt who looked like she wanted to argue. Since Rush had been nice enough to release her from his hold, Mer saved her aunt the time of fighting for her by standing and moving away first.

"It's all right. I knew I was going back," Mer said with resignation.

Luna turned from her and bit back her tears. She would not argue with her daughter.

Mer went to Rush, and she tried not to focus too hard on the sounds of her uncle going to her aunt and their gasped breaths of despair as they couldn't stop this. Rush offered her his hand, and she reached hers up shakily. Mer knew it was time of for her to go back to her cage, but something happened when her fingers touched Rush's cool skin. At first it was a spark, and then it exploded.

Blood covered everything–splattered over half of the wall, soaking into her arm and dripping from her fingertips, and of course it was all over Rush too.

It was his blood.

Rage rolled Rush's lips back, and his fangs clenched together like a beast biting into a steak. Rush twisted his neck like he was controlling their anger but about to break something, and tremors rattled her as she knew this was the end of her life.

Rush's entire right arm that he'd offered was a peeled banana.

Shreds of shriveled flesh rolled up and stuck out on every side, and blood dripped all over her aunt's carpet. It was as if Mer had somehow set a small charge of C4 in the center and blew it. As a vampire, Rush was still able to move the raw flesh and damaged muscle, and he curled it into his chest with a low growl.

Mer couldn't look away from him again, but it was the aggression flaming in his eyes and not his power this time. Had she injured his arm? All she'd done was touch his hand. Gods, he was going to kill her.

Mer didn't hear her aunt move, but Rush used his good arm and blew Luna back with a burst of dark magic that slammed the only woman who'd ever cared for her against the wall. Torin ran to her, and Luna spat blood as she stood, her mage staff formed in between her hands.

"Stop." Mer's voice was too quiet, because her aunt formed her spell.

Rush flooded the room with dark magic that crushed both Luna and her uncle until the spell died off and they were unable to stand. Both of them trembled on the ground, and when Torin reached his hand for Luna's, she could barely grasp it as her staff fell from her hands. Rush took a step towards them, and there was nothing left of the man she'd met that morning. None of this was her aunt and uncle's fault though, and she forced herself into Rush's path to protect them. The rabid eyes of a beast crushed the inside of her skull with his power, but she couldn't let him kill them. Not them.

"Please. It was an accident. Kill me. Please don't take them from me." Tears streamed down her face, and she was amazed she was still upright.

"They attacked me." Rush's voice came out in a low growl, and it rolled like a sickly mix between a tiger and a feral wolf. The world around Mer spun as Rush's eyes zoned off into nothing like he was losing control, and her knees threatened to send her to the floor.

Darkness pooled in Rush's hand, and he extended it out to her with his only good arm. With her rapid breaths and panic, it took her a moment to recognize the pair of shackles she'd been wearing the day prior. They were back to where they'd started, and though she tired to take them from him, he dropped them on the floor to avoid contact with her.

"Put them on," the beast in front of her uttered, stretching its jaw as if it wanted to rip her own arm off with it.

It took some doing. Mer trembled horrendously, and her blood-slicked fingers slipped on the metal more than once. They were too heavy to lift, and she had to sit on the floor and set her hands into them to snap them over her wrists. That was the only moment of stillness Rush gave her before he grabbed and tossed her through a spell back to his castle.

Mer tumbled onto the bed she'd slept in the night prior, and she wanted to scream as Rush fell after her, but only a choked gasp escaped as pain seared into her neck. Rush's fangs clasped on her throat, and she couldn't move or think of anything else as teeth dug into her flesh. His jaw gripped her so hard that she could barely even breathe.

With nowhere else to put her hands, she gripped Rush's shirt with her shackled hands, and her sight flashed white as his lips pulled on her throat and blood poured out into his mouth. His hand clamped on the back of her head so firmly that she couldn't so much as cringe back. This was much worse than she'd imagined. The pain spiked as he bit harder and his fangs sliced deeper into her flesh. Cold swept over her with each wave of blood that flooded out of her, and she choked on her breath as each new wave sank her deeper into an abyss of ice. It was like dying in slow motion. Everything grew light and the ground seemed to disappear out from under her.

This was how it was then.

Well, at least he hadn't violated her prior to killing her.

This had been eventual, right?

In her delirium, Rush's light smile flashed in her mind, and his off-taste sense of humor rang in her ears. It quickly spiraled to his eyes flaring in rage and his fangs bared at her, but then things warped into god only knew what. The sun set in front of her eyes, though it wasn't as if she could really see it. Man, was she losing it from blood loss right now. The sun dipped past the horizon, and just as it passed, light burst in a mix of sunlight and the creeping darkness, something visible for only a moment each morning and each evening. Those small white and black lights spun together but this time the sun rose and climbed high above her.

Now was a shitty time, magic.

Mer was too busy dying to care what her damn calling was. Stop flashing images of a life that she wasn't going to have. How rude was that? Like, thanks, magic she'd ignored her entire life. So what? Her calling was what? Dawn? Dusk? Some mix of light and darkness she couldn't fully understand? What in God's name did that matter?

Right now, she wasn't even sure she was conscious.

Shackles floated in front of her, and she had two keys split between her hands, one shrouded in darkness and the other in light. The key hole to the shackles hummed with darkness, so she slid the dark key into them. They snapped open, fell away, and she rubbed her wrists. Then she remembered there was still a monster attached to her neck, and it appeared in her delusion, gripping her throat and her skull very uncomfortably.

This was Rush though. What had she done to him? When her skin had touched his, a spark of magic had passed between the and torn his arm to shreds. It had surged through Rush with power that she had not intended to release. Why had it done that? Before, she had been standing in light that had made her feel sick. The released of energy had felt good, like throwing up a stomach overfull of poison, but she'd emptied all that magic out into Rush.

Two hands floated before her, her own hands she realized, and just like the keys, one shone with the bright light that had hurt Rush, while the other emanated darkness like what Rush was made up of in this hallucination. If she touched the beast with the light would it hurt him again? Would it save her? Or would it just poke the already vicious bear?

This delusion was dumb. Couldn't she just see some nice scenery and feel the wind against her skin? Maybe a whole basket of kittens would be nice, but no, she had darkness and light running up her arms, now clawing at her to decide what to do with them. Touching Rush had released the energy before, so it stood to reason that whichever hand she chose would decide his and her fate. If she chose light the beast would explode, but the beast was Rush. Did she want him to disappear? Well, he was killing her. But he had also been kind to her when it had not been necessary.

So, no on the light magic, but her arms were so heavy, like if she didn't release the energy it would crush her. Maybe she could dilute the light with the dark? Like when the sun set and it mixed with the darkness. Thanks magic vision. Touching her hands together spiraled the light with the darkness to run it up and down her arms in a joining that for once wasn't painful.

It felt good.

This was a nice acid trip. Mer had done something once at some weird party, and she had no idea what it had been, but the trip had been nothing compared to this. Mer had stumbled through the dorms walking on clouds and laughing hysterically until one of her better friends had collected her. Now she had no friends. Only light, darkness, and the beast killing her.

Mer didn't want to kill Rush, but she needed this to stop. It would when she was dead, and this was just some messed up delusion so, really, what did it matter? The ghostly form hovered above her, the light from her body leaching into the dark cloud it was made of. It looked painful, but maybe she could fix it. 

With her intertwined light and darkness, she thrust her hand over the energy that was wasting the beast alive. Mer's darkness cut through it until it hissed away, and the light from her arm mixed with the darkness to spiral down the beast's arm. A crisscrossed pattern like a plaid sweater sleeve of darkness and light covered the beast's arm from his shoulder to his fingertips, and Mer giggled in hysteria at how ridiculous it looked.

Pain increased in her neck near a hundred fold, and the delusion shattered as her mind sank into darkness. This was it. It had been a fun acid trip before she died, and at least her arms weren't shackled anymore. With them, she did the only thing she really could and slid them around the shadow and held it.

"Sorry..." There was not much else for her to say as her consciousness, unconscious or not, began to fade.

Sorry to her aunt and uncle who were probably in some hospital barely alive. Sorry to her parents who she had never bothered to learn anything about. Who were they? Darc and Ruby Aurion. Those weren't even their names, dammit. What were her parent's real names? Those were their mage names. God, she didn't even know them. Well, sorry to whatever her mage name would have been. Maybe they could name her Shackles–she ended up in them more often than not.

Where was she again?

Apologizing.

Wasn't there someone left she needed to... apologize... to...

­

Darkness. Blood. Blindness.

What was this nightmare? Mer opened her eyes to old stone walls dripping with moisture like the walls of a cave. It was almost completely dark, but she could make out stalactites, rocks strews on the ground, and the walls of the rounded enclosure like it was daytime. The air smelled musky like mold and algae, and she couldn't find an exit to the hell cave. Was she stuck here? Why was she so calm if she was locked in, and why did her chest hurt. It felt like her own bones were curling in on her organs, stabbing them and opening wounds she couldn't reach to bandage. Hungry. So hungry. Blood. She wanted blood.

Don't scream, Don't scream.

"Who are you?" A male voice asked from nowhere, and that scream stuck in her throat. "You keep coming here, but I don't know who you are."

Keep coming here? Where was here? And who was this guy?

Mer thought about responding, but she worried that would give the man the means to find and kill her. Or to blind her. Why did she fear blindness so terribly? That was all she experienced in this repeating dream, darkness and a thirst for blood.

"You're afraid of me?" He seemed confused. "I am not coming to your mind. You are coming to mine."

Mer was in his mind? Maybe that would explain why she couldn't turn her head or control what she was seeing or doing. What she was seeing must be through this man's eyes, as well as what she was feeling. Hunger and pain.

"The first few times you came to me, I thought you were a spy, but after I realized you were alive, I tried to reach back and touch you. When I do though, you always recoil back, scream, and run." The man sounded kind, but who was this and why was her mind reaching into his?

"You're a vampire," Mer said to him, feeling his almost uncontrollable desire for blood.

"Yes. You are not. I can feel your repulsion to my hunger." He paused abruptly. "Are you okay?"

"Okay? I'm okay. Why?"

"Your mind is quite sedated, as you are sleeping, but beneath it I can feel fear, and not of me."

Oh... When had that been? What had she been doing prior to sleeping? It was hard for her to remember anything. Even her own name and existence was like a thick fog she had to clear away and reach into.

"I'm okay, really." Mer said as much as she knew, which was nothing.

"I see. Do you have a name?"

"Why would I give my name to a man who thirsts so powerfully for blood that it feels as if he's being impaled? If you knew who I was, wouldn't you come find and drain me?"

"That is not necessary. I eat on a regular basis, but it is approaching my time to feed. I am calm because I am used to it, however someone like you might not understand how unrelenting the pull can be to blood. You can feel the pain though, so you understand that it is much worse than a human starving. This is only the beginning of the decline."

Mer thought about it but still didn't give her name. "Are you a prisoner?" Mer asked instead. The man looked around the cave to allow her a better view, but it was no different than the rest, cold hard stone, darkness, and solitude rocks, with no exit from the dripping walls.

"Yes, but at my own request. I can leave if I desire. I need only ask."

"Yeah, I'm definitely not telling you my name," Mer said, pulling back from him. It was strange feeling herself settled into whoever this person's mind was, like his brain was a cushy chair for her soul.

"That is okay. I'm not going to pester you. It's... interesting to have company. I'm not accustomed to it, so I enjoy your presence, named or not. Is there anything I can call you which is not your name?"

Something to call her? Like the way mages had alternative names. What should she call herself?

"How about Dusk."

"That sounds fantastic." Enjoyment fluttered through her mind briefly, dulled by the raging hunger for blood.

"I need no pretext. My name is Damien. If you ever need help, call my name. I'll be happy to help you, Dusk."

Help her. A vampire.

"You wouldn't want to help me," Mer said, remembering what Rush had said about vampires and mages.

"Sure, I would." The man laughed lightly. "Call me. Anytime. Dusk."

~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 2994