She didn't know where she was going and she didn't think she cared at the moment. Her tears were obscuring her vision to such a staggering degree that it was as if she was walking blind. She had to stick to the walls in hopes that she didn't bounce into anyone and have another Posa Town situation happening all over again. No matter how much she tried to push it aside, Saenar's words played over and over in her head.

I dislike you.

I love Charmaline.

Stab, stab and stab to her heart.

The built up tears finally spilled over and she leaned against a wall. Sobs racked her body as the words continued to echo in her head. He hates her. He hates her.

He loved Charmaline and he hated her. Mynera loved him but he hated her.

Somewhere, in the deep crevices of her mind, Mynera knew that this was not her. She was stronger than this, she was smarter than this. She shouldn't be here crying her eyes out over man when she was practically a fugitive. She had more important things to worry about than where the heart of the man she loved was headed.

Or rather, already was.

He never liked her. All those worried looks, and those stolen glances, those semi-jealous encounters were all just a figment of her imagination. He didn't like her. He was still in love with his beloved Charmaline.

And that kiss was nothing but boredom. A mistake that he said in his own words, borne from his manly urges. She was nothing but a nuisance in his life.

From the moment she interfered when he was stealing from the camp of the red enemies, to the moment she broke the old man's bottles, to her getting herself kidnapped. All of it just added to his annoyance and hatred of her.

While she was slowly building feelings for him and hope that he shared the same, he was thinking about his dear Charmaline. Who was probably dead!

A chuckle escaped her lips. Then another. Then she was full out laughing, drawing unwanted attention. How foolish could she have been? Really, and to think she prided herself in seeing a trick a mile away.

Mynera leaned her hand against the wall, still chuckling while the tears continued to fall. Something, she noticed, was under her hand and she looked on the wall.

She was staring back into her face. It was a Wanted sign, her face sketched almost perfectly with a hood over it. It only made her laugh harder. Was she really here crying over Saenar right beside her Wanted sign? She must be mad.

But for reasons she didn't care to explore, she didn't care. She knew she should have just headed back into the inn where she could hide out until it was safe to leave but she didn't want to go back there. She didn't want to look at Saenar. She didn't want to see his deep brown eyes glancing at her with pity when she reentered with her red, swollen eyes. It was already bad enough that she didn't have his love, she didn't want his sympathy.

Her chuckles faded away and the overwhelming sadness fell right back on top of her. She sighed and stepped away, pulling the hood closer over her head. She would just wander the town a bit, because no way was she going back there to face him.

Mynera stopped in front of a building where there seemed to be a very large amount of noise. She looked up.

"Ole' Tave!" it read.

So it was a tavern huh? Suddenly, the irresistible urge to go inside and knock back a few took her over. It was probably the riskiest thing she ever thought of doing but if she kept to myself, if she didn't speak to anyone and kept her hood over her head then she might be fine. And she didn't have to risk anyone recognizing her while she was wearing these dirty formless clothes that gave her as much shape as a sack of potatoes.

What has she got to lose?

Her life, but she was still going in. Mynera wiped her tears away and pulled the hood even closer to her face. The noise was much louder inside. Everyone was shouting, laughing, calling to the barmaids in the scanty clothing. It was as if everyone was possessed by the devil himself.

Well, who was to say their drinks wasn't sin in liquid form?

She quickly stepped out of the way when a big man fell down, spilling his drink all over her shoes. He looked up to her, no doubt to mutter a slurred sorry but she was already stepping over him and heading to the farthest secluded seat she could find. There, she slipped into the corner.

She wasn't the only one there. A man was sitting on the end, near her seat but on the opposite end across from her. He didn't even glance in her direction. He was also covered in a cloak, blocking her view of his face but that was just fine with her. They looked the same, shrouded by their covering cloaks. He should respect her territory and she would respect his. No questions.

"Can I get ya anythin'?" a lady asked, her breast aiming to knock Mynera in the face if she hadn't been all the way in the corner.

She didn't face her. She just pointed to the cup her fellow silent drinking traveler was holding.

The barmaid looked down at it. "Ale?"

Mynera nodded, still keeping her head down. The barmaid didn't look very weirded out by her actions. She doubtlessly got a lot of suspicious people like her while working here. Just Mynera's luck. No suspicion. No eyes on her.

In no time the woman appeared, putting a wooden tankard of ale in front of her.

"There you go!" She smiled. "Anything else?"

Mynera waved her off and she left. She took up the tankard, feeling its weight. It was certainly more than anything she ever drank before. She never had anything more than a cup of wine at dinner. And that was a lot since those cups were pretty deep. But this ... this was much more than she was used to.

Exactly what she wanted.

She took a tentative sip. It went down surprisingly smoothly although the alcohol was strong. She took another sip.

All of a sudden, she heard Saenar's voice in her head telling her to slow down. To be cautious. To stop this nonsense and return to the inn. It only made her pick up the tankard with both hands and down the ale as fast as she could.

Mynera slammed her hand on the table three times, drawing the attention of the same barmaid.

"Yes?"

She pointed to the tankard, then waved her hand in a motioned to tell her to keep them coming. Her first sign that she was getting drunk was the woozy way her hands flew around but then Saenar's face dared to pop up in her head again and she was downing the ale as quickly as it was put in front of her.

She wasn't very sure how many she knocked back. She wasn't even sure how she managed to get the tankards to her lips. She couldn't even find her lips. She tried touching it. She only managed to poke herself in the eye.

"Ow!" Mynera squealed, holding her injured eye.

"Are you okay?" a voice said to her. She looked up to see that her drinking companion for the past ... how many days has it been? Well, nevermind. He had shuffled closer.

Mynera's lips stretched apart in a wide smile. Why was she angry again? She thought it had something to do with brown eyes telling her they hated her. But why would they hate her? Everyone loved her! She was so warm! Even now, her body felt like a furnace.

"Zzzzzzz ... Yes!" Mynera jumped up suddenly, then sent him another wide smile. "Come, come! Join the party! Ale over here! Over there! Ale everywhere!"

"You sound quite drunk."

"Sh!" She pushed her fingers up to her lips. Or at least she tried. This time she succeeded in stabbing herself in the nostril. She didn't know why that was so funny to her but she started laughing.

Then she grew serious. She leaned over the table to him. "You can't let him hear you."

"Let who hear me?"

"Sssssssave me from your love, oh prince!" Mynera threw her hands up as she sang loudly. "Save me from your looooove!"

"I think it's best if you went home."

"Home?" She paused, thinking back. For some strange reason, all her thoughts were hazy, a mass of noise in her already foggy head. "What's home? Do you have one? Can I have it?"

"Home's where you eat and rest."

"Really? Then in that case my home is everywhere!" Mynera threw her hands up at the end of her slurred sentence. For the life of her, she couldn't say her words without dragging them out.

She didn't even care.

"I'm tired!" she announced suddenly. She dropped her head on the table and she heard the traveler shuffle closer when it made a loud banging noise. "Sleep time!"

"No, you can't sleep here." He was beside her now, pulling her up.

"But this is my hooooome." Mynera's body sagged on him, her eyes closed.

"This isn't your home. We'll find your home."

"I don't have one anymore, don't you get it?" Suddenly angry, she slammed her hands on the table. Then a wave of giggles fell over her and she grinned into his face.

"Take your cloak off," she said between giggles. "I can't see your face. It's so dark over here in the corner."

"I'd rather not."

"Pleeaaasseee! I'll take mine off if you take off yours." She smiled at him, hoping that would be enough for him to shed the cloak.

He struggled to keep her hands by her side. "No can do. Now come, let's go outside."

"Waaait!" Mynera paused, holding her hands out in the air. He paused. Slowly, she turned her head to him as a smile stretched across her lips. "I have a secret."

"I'm sure you do."

"You see," She leaned in close, putting her mouth to what she desperately assumed was his ear. "I'm a lady."

"Is that so?"

Mynera pouted. "You don't sound very surprised."

"I knew that the moment you opened your mouth."

"Well, you're no fun!" She crossed her arm like a petulant child.

"Up you go!" In one incredibly swift movement, he managed to pull her up and out of her seat. He moved so fast, in fact, that it was as if he hadn't moved at all. One moment, she was sitting there blissfully drunk out of her right mind. The next, she was clinging on to his arms in a desperate attempt to stay upright while her head spun like a top.

"I think I'm going to vomit," she declared, holding her mouth.

"Swallow it back and let's get out of here."

His command was clipped and she wasn't too keen on vomiting all over the stone floor and drawing attention to herself. She swallowed back the bile that rose in her mouth, and allowed the stranger to lead her past the angry drunks, the groping drunks and the drunks who looked half dead but was probably asleep. This tavern probably never saw a drunk like her and probably never will again. She was new. A drunk lady.

If the stranger hadn't been holding her upright on the way out, Mynera would have more than likely gotten shoved over. Or maybe just toppled over on her own from the inescapable dizziness that she was now victim of.

When the cool night air hit her face, she almost sagged in relief. She would have too, if the stranger didn't have a good grip on her arm. The urge to empty her stomach content and the brisk air pushed whatever sense she had to the surface. She was now a little more aware of what was going on around her, including the fact that the stranger was leading her somewhere she didn't know.

"Where are you taking me?" Mynera murmured, her head resting against his shoulder. She felt incredibly exhausted.

"Home," he replied.

"I have no home."

"Then I'm taking you to the big house in the sky."

"What does that mean?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

She was about to argue again, but then suddenly they were engulfed in a deep shadow. She couldn't see anything around her as he led her along and, for a moment, she was too caught up in trying to force her eyes to prematurely adjust than deciphering what the stranger had said.

She should have opened her eyes a bit more. Not literally but figuratively. He didn't mean a house sitting on some high hill or something to that order. He meant death. He was going to kill her.

The realization hit her too late. It wasn't when he slammed her on the wall, jolting her brain awake, did she begin to see what was around her. He had pulled her into a secluded alleyway.

But that wasn't what she was focused on.

The stranger finally pulled his hood back. Mynera didn't see his mouth, nor his nose. The outline of his face, sure, but that was equally as unimportant. What was really important was his eyes. His bright, red, glowing eyes.

She knew those eyes. She never saw them before but she knew them from the tales her nanny used to tell her before her death. Tales of creatures of the night, preying on innocent victims, feeding on one's life blood. There were two thing that differentiated these demons from regular human beings.

Their pale skin and their red eyes. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell the paleness of his skin but she didn't need to. The red eyes told it all.

He was a vampire.