They threw her into the forest as if she were nothing more than trash.

Myeong Kija hid in the trees as the two vampires threw her on the ground. He'd sensed them a couple minutes ago, and he had to follow them here, to see if what his friend was saying was lying. But it looked like he was telling the truth—they were discarding her, bones broken and tears falling down her cheeks. He silently watched as the man knelt, turned the body over, and let out a sigh—of disapproval? Or relief?

"This should make her come back to her senses," the male said, reaching out and wiping the tears away. "If not, then we can exile her from the family and she can be a stray."

The blonde shivered at that word. "You sure you want to do that, my darling?" she purred, making Kija sick to his stomach. "She'll be a terrible stray. What vampire would want her under his wing?"

The man stood up and barked out a laugh. "You're right, Dominika," he said, throwing a bloody arm around her shoulders. "She would be a terrible stray. No vampire would want her under her wing." And he went like that as they walked away from the other vampire, who was still completely knocked out and didn't have anything to say about it.

He waited till they were gone so he could come out of his hiding spot and slowly went over to her. Kneeling, he saw the extent of her injuries, most of them nearly healing. Her fingers were broken, her legs shattered but were healing, but not without blood. She needed to feed, but without any humans around, only animals and him...how was he going to feed her?

"Those bastards."

Kija looked up to see a white man with strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, and he wore some chainmail and a black robe. On his back was a greatsword and he smelled like dirt and death as he knelt and stared down at the vampire. His lips were pulled back and a tiny fang peeked out from his mouth, almost in a snarl. "I will rip out their hearts and eat them my damn self if I have to!" he roared.

"If you do that, he'll know you're alive and he'll kill you too," Kija warned him as he got up and sighed. "So how are we going to—" but the answer was answered as he picked her up easily and started to walk back to his place.

"I'll give her blood," the grave cleric said quietly. "Then after that, I leave to go back to Barvoria."

Kija sighed as he shook his head and turned to follow him, looking back to make sure those two vampires wouldn't come back to get her.

Reaching Kija's home didn't take long. His home was simple, though, to the grave cleric, it looked like a cave. It had a bed and other nicknacks he needed to survive, along with a place for a fire and some pots and pans for cooking his food. Kija watched as the grave cleric went over and placed the vampire on the bed carefully, then pulled down his sleeve to score his wrist with his fangs.

"She won't take it like this," the other vampire explained, watching her blink and open her eyes, then her jaw opening as the blood was poured down her throat. Kija watched in both fascination and horror as she reached up for the arm, her fingernails extending into claws, hissing and growling for the blood as she tried to sit up, only to fall back down and curl her hands up as she finished off the last of the blood and the grave cleric snatched his wrist back. "If she did, she'll be asking everyone for their wrists so she could feed from them."

What the hell kind of vampire doesn't drink from the vein? Kija thought as he watched his friend close up the wound and say a magical word that immediately put the vampire on the bed to sleep. A thin trickle of blood was on the side of her mouth, and she looked like a sleeping, bloody angel. "Why does she ask for blood instead of taking it?" he asked, his brown eyes flickering back to his friend.

He shrugged as he turned back to him and started to walk out. "Because that's how my sister is," he answered. "She doesn't like taking. She rather have permission before she takes it. Trevor is trying to make her take from the vein, but she can't do it." The cleric sighed as he turned back to her, a sad look on her face. "It'll take her a couple of days to heal, but until then, she should be safe and away from the sun." Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring.

"What's that?"

"Her wedding ring...the one she kept asking for." He said, going back over to her and gently placing it on her chest. Then he leaned over and whispered a couple of magical words in her ear, and the last thing Kija heard from her was that soft sigh as she went back to her deadless, torpor-like sleep.

"Logan," Kija said once it was done, and the cleric started to walk out again. "What did you do to her?"

"She can't remember me," Logan Kingsleigh explained. "If she did, she'll follow me to Barvoria, and if Strahd finds her, she'll get hurt again, this time by Strahd himself. I'm just protecting her from that."

"And if she does go to Barvoria to find Strahd?"

"Then I'll make sure she doesn't meet him at all."

"It's not going to work, you know that, right?"

Logan's lips lifted into a smirk as he turned around and started to walk in the forest. "It's gonna work," he said as he disappeared into the mist. "I did it before when she came back to the house."

~*~*~*~*~*

How many days has it been?

Two days? Three?

Evangeline blinked back the sleep as she twitched, dreaming about Nathion again and going to...

Where?

Wasn't she thinking about going someplace so she could be free?

Furrowing her brows, she slowly sat up and felt something rolling down her legs. Through her sleepiness, she reached down and grabbed it, frowning as she blinked her eyes open and found her ring to Nathion in her hands. Evangeline ran her finger down the engraving in elvish, and the tears came again as she remembered what happened to him.

She covered her mouth to try and cover the sob, but then she gasped when she heard something moving behind her. Quickly looking for a place to hide it, she reached out and started looking for something on the nightstand as the person came into view.

"Ah, so you're awake," the voice said, making her jerk up and finally grab an arrow.

What she saw wasn't something she could describe.

First off, she could see his nine tails, which was something she'd never thought she'd see before. Secondly, he had long reddish hair, obsidian eyes, and a playful smile on his lips as he slowly placed down a cooked chicken drenched in...

Blood.

She gulped as the smell of fresh blood filled her nostrils and her stomach growled. She slowly sat up and crawled over to him, the arrow still clenched in her hand as he chuckled. "You found an arrow, huh? I can make a bow for you if you like. Good for hunting chicken."

"I..." she started to say, every thought about shoving the arrow in his shoulder and running away flying out of her head as she stared at the bloody cooked chicken. "I don't..." Evie's words were failing her, and she fell with an oof sound, the arrow slipping from her fingers. Slowly sitting up and cursing her weakness, she looked up at the bloody chicken, her jaw started to drop, and her fangs started to drop from her gums.

With a deep snarl, she snatched the chicken and started to eat it, making him-a fox? Is that what he was?-laugh as he reached for other things. Grabbing a bowl, he poured her some milk along with a couple of drops of blood, and he placed it in front of her. Tearing off a piece of the chicken with her fangs, she reached for the bowl of milk and drank from it, then moved back to the chicken.

He looked at her with a small smirk on his face as he stood up. "You should slow down, you know," he told her. "It's not going anywhere. You can have as much as you want."

The question was at the tip of her tongue, but she pushed it back from her mind as she ate more of the bloody chicken and drank more of the milk, finding her hunger from the days she was sleeping nearly gone. Evangeline kept her eyes on the strange man as he got up and went back to the fire, humming a little song before it disappeared, and the only thing she cared about was eating her meal before she went to join him.

Once she was done and wiped her mouth, she picked up the plate and bowl and started to stand up, only for her left leg to wobble and she fell back down on her ass. Evie blinked, confused as it why that was happening, when he came back and sighed. "You're not fully healed yet," he said again, shaking his head. "You need one more day of sleep before you can walk around again."

"But..." she started, sitting there and wincing at the pain as she tried to get up, feeling her leg wobble again. Evie figured that Trevor shattered that leg completely, and it was taking a minute for it to heal. But why was it taking that long to heal? It shouldn't...unless...she took a deep breath and looked down at the dishes in her hands, and found that her fingers were nearly healed, but she was having trouble flexing them. He nearly shattered my hands too. She thought bitterly as she looked up at him, giving him a little smile. "My plates...I want...I want to clean my plates."

The fox blinked again when she said it, sounding like a little child who was disappointed. "I can clean them for you." He offered, which made her shake her head.

"I want to clean my plates." She repeated, this time stronger. "Please...let me...let me clean them."

"You're hands..." he started, pointing to them. He was wondering why she was adamant that she could clean the plates when he could tell that she couldn't even pick up a washcloth. But then, something was driving this girl to try to be normal, even though she wasn't a normal vampire. "Fine. Wash your dishes. Though I think it would be much better if you just let me—"

"I can't...let you do it. He'll know..." was the only thing she said as she clutched the plates close to her chest, and that's when he figured it out.

That vampire has twisted and tortured her mind so bad, that he made her think that she can be dependent on him and not her own person. As if...as if she was a goddamn child.

No wonder why Logan was pissed off.

Turning around, he went back to the huge bowl filled with dirty water and poured it out, then poured some more and went back to her, and placed it on the ground in front of her. "If you need anything else, then tell me, okay?" he told her, backing away before he turned back around. "I'll be outside. Come find me if you want someone to talk to as a human being."

Come find me if you want someone to talk to as a human being.

Evie looked up at him, shocked as he left, his clothes something she'd never seen before, his hair flickering behind him as he left her. She looked back down at the water bowl and saw that she was a mess—her hair was messed up, the curls gone, her face still beautiful. But her hands were still curved and nearly broken as she tried to flex them, only for a shot of pain to go through her hands.

Tears came to her eyes as she dropped the dirty plates in the water and started to wash them as much as she could with her semi-broken hands.