"You're saying my father went insane." Mer could barely form the words.

"Yes, Meredith. Like your father, your body accepts dark magic, but unlike him, it also allows for light magic. Without both you could not have healed me. That ability is just the bare bones of what you could achieve. If you can harness dark and light magic, you can surpass your father's strength but not go mad. If anyone finds out that the Aurions have a mage who can use both light and dark magic, it's dangerous for everyone involved. When you blew my arm to tatters, what had you been doing prior?"

Mer's mind was spiraling on all of this information, but the question grounded her enough to focus on a single point. "I was standing in the light. I was looking for my calling like the book said but having no luck. I wanted to feel the sun, but when I did, it was painful."

"That is what I thought." Rush held his hands out in front of him flat, palms down. "I suspect your body is like scales. If they are even, like this, the magic is balanced and stable. If you tilt it." Rush raised one of his hands up. "You may become over saturated with whatever magic energy you are absorbing. In the case of light energy, since it is not harmful to humans it won't burst inside of you, but I imagine it would make you uncomfortable, as you said.

"Did you find your calling?" Rush ran his hand back and forth on the skin of her chin lightly, and she blushed. The contact was gentle and soothing enough that she wasn't getting too upset by all this. O

Her calling had found her. In a way, as Darius Shade had written, it had reached out to her. It had known she was in danger and wanted to save her, like a living force with a will of its own. Without it, she'd be dead.

"I'm pretty sure it's dusk, dawn, or both." Mer tried to turn her head from his grip, his fingers kept hold of her, soft but unyielding. "When I healed you or whatever I did on that acid trip, I saw the light just as it touched the horizon and it coursed through my arms with the darkness."

Rush sat silent again. Why did he have to look so much like a statue when he was thinking?

"You healed me right at dusk. That might be when your magic is most powerful. If you do have scales inside of your body, it would stand to reason that you would fluctuate in how much light and dark energy you could absorb from around you all day. The scales would be even, right at sunrise and sunset.

"That unfortunately means you shouldn't be outside around the peak of any day or the darkest point at night. You would also likely only be able to heal a creature of the dark at either of those two times. Otherwise, you would have too much of either type of magic and it would unravel us."

"Unravel?" Mer asked. It was strange word to use, and Rush flinched.

"We would die, be torn up from the inside by the unstable light magic. It has to be in complete balance to coexist with the darkness and heal one of my kind." Rush paused, and his silence felt too damning as his gaze narrowed. "You realize that means you could do that on purpose, kill a vampire without having to behead them. Just by touching them, you could rip them apart from the inside out."

"I..." That sounded sickeningly grotesque, and she didn't want to hurt anything like that.

"You don't like the thought, do you?" Rush picked up on her feelings much quicker than she would expect for someone who was poor with emotions.

"No."

"I need you to like the thought, Meredith. There will be vampires who will not hesitate to do terrible things to you to harness your power, and you mustn't hesitate to tear them apart. They would not hesitate to do so to you."

"I still don't get why you care so much. Like you said. You're a vampire. I'm a mage and your enemy. Why are you not killing me now, before I get a handle on my abilities?" Rush let out another small sigh, and she wondered about it. "Why do you do that? You don't breathe."

"It's something my father picked up from a human. I grew up with him and learned it from him. It's a strange human mannerism, but as I don't have many emotions, I find it adequately fills a lot of roles." Rush pulled her face up to his, and heat crawled it as he pressed his forehead to hers. The way she was leaning against him, she was almost in his lap. "You can trust me if you'd like." Though he said the words, there seemed to be more to the sentence. "Trust no one else though, not a vampire, not a mage, not your family."

"Why can't I trust them?" Mer narrowed her eyes as she thought of Luna and Torin. They'd had no choice about sacrificing her, and they would never betray her.

"Meredith." Rush was silent for a moment before he spoke, but it wasn't his normal pauses. It was almost as if whatever he had to say made him feel guilty. "The Aurions put a bounty out of your father's head."

What did that mean?

"They offered immunity to law and untold riches to any vampire or mage that could behead him. Why do you think they were so willing to get rid of you? You're a loose end. A powerful loose end, mind you, but one nonetheless."

"My aunt?" Mer asked, and Rush shook his head.

"Your aunt headed it." Mer grew cold. "When she saw your father going mad, she took it as her responsibility to put him down."

"I can't trust anyone, can I?" What was she supposed to do about any of this? Being normal had been safe, or safe as it could have been, but now that she knew what sort of magic she possessed, she was just a huge liability for all mages and a fallback net for vampires.

"You can trust me. Just not too much," Rush repeated.

"God, Rush, what does that even mean?" This was all starting to sound insane. Her captor was the only one who she was supposed to trust, but not too much? What did that even hint at? Like he wouldn't kill her, usually, but still wanted to drink from her and have her under him?

"It means use me. Take what I give you but don't trust me for more ever. If you have to abandon me to live, you go ahead and sacrifice me. If you have to kill me when I turn on you, you do not hesitate. I will show you the way, I will give you what I can, but I can also not be trusted to not turn on you if you injure me again. Do you understand, Meredith?"

"No." Meredith's frown creased her forehead. Rush was a vampire, a monster according to her aunt. Why was he doing this for her? There was no reason for him to do so. Still, the answer coaxed another smile out of him, and he reached out to touch her hair softly.

"Good. If you said you did, you'd be a liar. I don't even understand. Somehow I got stuck with a cobra in my bed, and instead of sinking its fangs into me, it healed me and held me until I was able to regain enough of myself to stop myself from killing you."

"I'm really not a snake," Mer insisted, though her shoulders sagged in on herself. Rush was willing to help her, though he could not guarantee he wouldn't kill her if she accidentally blew off his arm again. That still just made her dangerous to him. Really, what benefit was there for him to be caring for her, to be telling her the truth?

"Rush." It was hard to broach, but they had already fully discussed her blowing off his arm, and he'd stated that he did not intend to rip her throat out again. All it left was number three. "Do you expect me to sleep with you?"

"Expect?" Rush's tone was light, as if in his literal speech it was not a word he'd use. "I expect to be dead sometime in the next week to some accidental happenstance with you."

That stung and she glared at him, but he smiled lightly to her aggression.

"If you are asking if I will force you to lie with me, I will not. But if you are so dead set on marrying me, you might want to warm to the idea."

"I'm not marrying you," Mer snapped, but the smile had curled onto his face already. "Yes, all right, I didn't hurt you because I didn't want to, but I'm not over here pining for you either."

"No?" Rush nudged her shoulders with his powerful fingers until she fell back onto the bed, and she stiffened as he crawled over her.

It was like a muscled panther stalking over her huddled defenseless form, and she gasped as he pressed his body lightly on hers. It did not take long for her to feel the hardness between his legs, and she swallowed nervously, her mouth dry and yet having too much moisture at the same time.

"I can feel your fear." Rush whispered, trailing his nose over her ear, and she shivered as he nuzzled her cheek. If her throat wasn't covered in bandages, she imagined he'd be there. "I can also feel your desire and uncertainty." Rush ran his hand lightly down her side to grip her hip softly and yet firmly.

"All right, stop," Mer demanded. Rush relaxed his body onto her with his legs between hers and his chest propped up on his elbows. "Look, Rush, you are very attractive and clearly you want to sleep with me, but I... you... You don't love me, and though I may be confused by my attraction to you, the regret after having emotionless sex with you wouldn't be."

"You lament that I do not love you?"

"Lament is a strong word," Mer answered curtly, and he smiled before kissing her cheek lightly.

"Do you not like physical pleasure? I can be gentle and rough all at the same time. You would like it." Rush teased her, pulling her hips into him and grinding in a way that stole her breath again.

"I like physical pleasure, Rush. I just don't like the thought of sleeping with someone who doesn't love me. Please understand." Mer paused, looking into his green eyes. His smile had fallen away for his normal look of composure, his dark hair gently falling over his forehead. "I also understand that might not be realistic to you as my captor, and I know you want me. I'm not in much of a position to decline."

"I am not going to force you," Rush reiterated, but the emotion in his voice didn't sound at all like her was concerned for her wellbeing. It sounded as if he were afraid of what she might do if she were in that situation.

"I'm too venomous?" Mer asked, and he nodded, changing his expression only a little with the raise of his eyebrows. Rush pulled himself off of her to sit sat up on the side of the bed, and then he was standing next to her fully dressed. 

God, could he ever slow down so she could see his movements?

~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 1953