Though I can feel the pain intensely, I know it's not mine.

I am starting to get really good at telling when the excruciating pain I'm experiencing is mine or not, but I'm not quite able to tell when it is physical and when it is emotional. All I know for sure is that I feel like I'm going to die.

My blood is on fire; my stomach is eating itself, and bright white pain seers through my heart like lightning bolts over and over. I would scream if I had the breath to do so.

"How do I block this?!" I sob through clenched teeth, struggling from under my duvet, pretty much falling from the bed onto the carpet, where I lie in a trembling, groaning heap.

I have to get to him!

I'm not sure who he is or why I need to get to him, and why my getting to him could possibly stop this horrible pain; I just know that I have to, and it will. Maybe it's because I could kill the person suffering like this, and then we'd both be pain-free.

Oh dear, I really hope not. I so do not want to start killing other humans! Not even to put them out of their obvious misery.

Crawling to the foot end of the bed, I wrestle myself to my knees and use the bedpost as a support to drag me to my feet. I have to stand still for a moment, my head resting against the thick, carved wooden post supporting the silk-draped canopy while I ride the pain to its conclusion.

When it becomes a little more tolerable, I stagger to my bedroom door, and opening it, I all but fall into the hallway as another wave of gut-tearing pain hits me. Suffering like this brings the memory of Ransford's kiss and the anguish that followed it into vivid focus in my mind. I can remember it so clearly now. Everything I've forgotten comes flooding back, leaving me breathless in its wake.

Ransford's pain was nothing like this.

The pain assaulting me now is a mixture of physical and mental agony, regret, anger, and bitterness. There is a fat dose of heartache in there too, but it is nothing like the pure despairing sense of loss I'd experienced when Ransford's kiss started to become truly intense.

Before my heaven got ripped apart by that horrible pain, the tips of his fingers were finding their way under the bottom edge of my shirt, stroking my ribs, causing cascades of bubbles in my veins and goosebumps to pucker my skin. I have never felt like that before!

Thinking about that kiss helps. For a moment, I was transported to a happy place where no glowing hot pokers were piercing my entrails. The moment my focus shifts to the present, I crash to my knees, gasping while tears stream down my cheeks. I think I'm going to pass out.

I have to get to him!

I crawl to the nearest hallway table and pull myself up again, standing still, trying to find my balance and a way to block the pain dragging the breath from my lungs. Thinking about the kiss brings sharp memories of Ransford's pain to mind, which harmonizes perfectly with the pain currently trying to bring me to my knees again. Thinking of the kiss is not the best way to protect myself against this deluge of misery after all.

I swallow the bile threatening in the back of my throat, and taking a deep breath, I stumble along the corridor, steadying myself by leaning against the wall and intermittent tables and cabinets like a drunk walking home after a bender.

The further I progress towards the source of the agony, the more bearable it becomes, which makes no sense to me. I thought it would become more intense the closer I got, but I can walk almost normally after a couple of laboured turns and twists along the winding corridors.

I've been here before.

I recognize the tall grandfather clock with the metal inlays and the broad-leaved potted plant not far from it. The hallway is much brighter than it was that day, probably due to better light bulbs or my improved vision, but this is definitely the hallway I got lost in on my first morning here.

Following the pull that brought me to this hallway, I finally reach an open door. Peeking inside, I see a bed with dishevelled sheets and realise that this is the room where someone was lying in bed, groaning. There was a man in here that day, sitting by the bedside, trying to soothe the occupant. It had been too dark for me to see who he was or who was in the bed.

It's still dark in the room. The thick, midnight blue drapes are pulled shut, but I'm able to make out the shapes of shadowy furniture lurking like silent creatures in the gloom. Suddenly nervous, I step over the threshold and slowly cross to the bed.

The room is holding its breath.

I stop, acutely aware of a shift in the atmosphere. The pain is gone, and in its stead, fear is rippling down my spine, puckering my scalp and uncomfortably dragging its nails through my hair.

What have I walked into?

Turning to hurry back to the open door, I gasp in shock when the door slams shut. I shouldn't be here! Why did I come here? My breath, shivering through my terrified airways, sounds shaky and rough in my ears.

"Is... is there someone here?" I ask in a voice as dry as paper, clasping my hands together against my chest. My stomach is feeling tight and queasy with dread.

"Yes." 

The answer, whispered in a coarse voice, stills even those anxious little huffs of breath I was capable of, and now I'm not breathing at all. I turn around slowly, but there's no one behind me. There are too many shadows hiding in dark corners for me to discern a person concealed in them. Holding my breath, I try to listen for movement, signs of an imminent attack, but there's nothing but the swirling silence filled with presence.

"I'm s-sorry... I intruded. I'll l-leave," I stutter, once more turning to the door and taking a tentative step towards freedom.

"No!"

I jump back with a hoarse cry when I walk into a body that hadn't been standing in front of me when I'd started to take the step to the door. All I can see is a rumpled, half-buttoned black shirt, barely covering chest muscles that warn of power I would not be able to fight against.

My throat closing up in terror, I slowly tilt my head back to see the face above the chest, and for a moment, I sag with relief. I even feel the first tentative stirrings of joy.

Alaric!

Then I see his eyes. They are shimmering silver disks reflecting a sun that isn't even shining right now, a sheen of light green glowing like fire over the enchanting irises. The man looks haunted rather than threatening, and yet, fear is once again strengthening its hold on my heart.

This is not Alaric.

His hair is shorter than I remember, and his face is less gaunt, more lively, and filled with colour, but this is definitely the man who hovered above me the night after I went to town with Billy. That was the night I started my kissing spree—first, with Billy in the car and then with Ransford...

No, they kissed me; I didn't kiss them, and Ransford just stole the cream from my lips... it wasn't really a kiss. I now know what it's like when he actually kisses me.

This is the man who was floating in the air, looking down at me. He is also the man I woke up next to after my tunnel adventure... and then... he bit me! Did he? No... That man was just a fantasy my brain came up with while I was dreaming! 

Am I dreaming now?

He seems so real, and he is studying my face with such melancholic intensity that it is setting my heart on fire in a completely different way from the horrible pain that had led me to him. Why was he in that much pain? I suddenly have to fight the urge to wrap my arms around him and hold him tightly in a comforting embrace.

Why did I feel his pain so strongly that it called me to him?

He doesn't seem to be in pain now, but he is battling with something. I'm not sure what, and when I close my eyes for a second, hiding from those unnerving eyes, he is gone when I open them again.

"I... am not... strong enough... to fight this," he says in a voice like a stormy wind grinding over rough stones. Each word is measured slowly, spoken between laboured breaths. Speaking is taking a toll on him.

Turning in a circle, I search, but I once again cannot see him. I'm unable to tell where his voice is coming from. It's everywhere and nowhere. On a hunch, I look up, but he is not hovering near the ceiling. 

Silky fingers run along the exposed skin of my neck, and I spin around with a shriek, trying to find the source of the touch, but he is not there.

"Why are you doing this?!" I huff, breathless with fright. "You're being creepy; please let me go!" My last word leaves my throat with a scream when hands on my shoulders turn me to face away from him, where he now stands behind me.

My breathing is starting to become erratic as fear crawls into my belly and makes its home there, a hungry dragon waiting to devour me from the inside. Looking across the room, I can vaguely see myself reflected in the mirror of the vanity there. I can see my captor's arms snaking around my neck and chest while he buries his face in my hair.

"Please," I shiver, afraid of the strong urge to surrender, coursing through my blood, slaughtering the dragon and causing my heart to gallop frantically. I cannot give in to this. If I do, I'll die. I know that with a certainty that transcends all understanding, and yet the allure is so strong. I want to lean into his body and yield to death at the hands of this damaged man.

He's gone again!

One moment, he is standing behind me with his arms wrapped around me from behind, and the next, he is gone. He didn't fade away or blur out in the mirror. He was there, and then he wasn't, and the breeze of his leaving stirred my hair and caused me to stumble.

I can breathe again, and I can think again, too. The fear is back, propelling me to the door at a run. I've barely taken two steps when I once again crash into his hard chest, and this time, he roughly turns me and pulls me flush against him, his arms like steel bands around me, binding me to him.

"Why?" I sob, shrinking away from his breath tickling my exposed neck. 

I now know why. I shouldn't, but I do. 

My blood is healing him, slowly bringing him back from a living death, but it is causing a craving worse than any addict experiences during withdrawals. He needs my blood to heal properly because now that his healing has begun, he will die without it. He's been fighting the impulse to come to me because he's not strong enough yet to control himself.

The small portions of my blood he's been given are no longer enough. He is on the cusp of a breakthrough. He will either heal or go mad... and I'm about to find out which it will be.

I willessly stand trembling in his embrace, feeling his breath like silk against the exposed skin of my neck. A small part of me wants to fight him and run, while the biggest share longs for him in ways that make no sense to me.

When I feel his lips - cool and quivering, running along the length of my neck, I gasp, my body shivering with fear and anticipation. The pain, when it comes, is barely detectable. Nothing like previously when he had even less control than now. I barely feel it, and then, with a groan, I submit myself to the blissful warmth spreading through my body, floating me off on a cloud of smoky joy and sparkling well-being. I know I'm going to die because he doesn't have the control to stop taking my blood when he has to.

I simply don't care. 

My vision is beginning to blur, darkness seeping in from the edges. In the deepest regions of my mind, I'm sad that I will not be able to meet Billy at the library after all or have coffee with Liam ever again. My heart breaks when I think about Ransford and how wonderfully alive I felt this afternoon when he kissed me.

And Alaric...

A sob breaks on my lips when I think about the quiet, cold man with devastating eyes and gentle hands holding me in his arms while telling me about the last duke's wife and the mating habits of the praying mantis. 

Alaric Slatherty, the loneliest man on the planet.

Hearing the sob, my captor lifts his mouth from my neck, an anguished growl escaping from the depths of his being where life and death have been battling for much too long.

"Deaglan!"

I know that voice - husky and broken- and when Deaglan turns his face away from my neck to look at the door, I open my eyes to see Alaric framed there like a knight about to attack with a fiery sword... except that he doesn't have a sword. He doesn't need one. His eyes are flashing silver, his hair is a mess, and he is only wearing long sleeping trousers made of dark burnt umber satin.

A knight in satin PJs; how lovely!

He is glorious. There is nothing visible of the stiff, cold businessman I got to know this last week. His creamy skin hides rippling muscles, and his face is set in a fierce snarl. Sharp teeth, like fangs, are partially visible on either side of his four front teeth. I've never seen anything more dangerous and frightening in my entire life. Admiration, horror, and fear meet and twine in my heart while something close to excitement bubbles in my blood.

What the hell is this?!

"Please... take her... from me..." Deaglan growls hoarsely, his arms falling away from my body, and I slump to the floor, folding in on myself as if I were made of cloth; all the bones in my body seem to have evaporated along with my nerve endings. I'm lifted off my feet before I can hit the rug I'm standing on.

The world swirls past my fading vision in a blur, and I close my eyes against the onslaught of dizziness, my head lolling on a bare chest. I can hear Alaric's heartbeat, the sound reverberating roughly in my head, causing my body to sag serenely. I smell rain, forest, and musk, and I breathe it in deeply, floating in its bliss.

Seconds later, I'm lowered onto a bed, and when I dig my fingers into his arms, preventing him from leaving, Alaric lies down beside me.

"You can teleport!" I exclaim in awe.

"No," Alaric assures me. "I just run really fast."

I can try a million years, but I won't be able to imagine Alaric running anywhere. It wouldn't be dignified.

"You're home," I whisper, trying to nestle into his embrace, but he holds me off. His hands cup my face, tilting it so that he can look into my eyes, and his face is etched with worry.

"So it seems," he mutters, and I narrow my eyes, trying to focus on his features, swirling in the increasing black spreading across my mind. I don't see any fangs now, and his face is once again devoid of emotion. He no longer looks dangerous in a primal way, which is a pity. Still, he now looks like a very sexy, uptight librarian.

I'm surprised to hear someone giggle and to realise that it is just me.

"Dammit," Alaric grunts. "He took too much."

He lays my head down on the pillow and pushes himself into a semi-sitting position, dragging me up to rest my head and upper body against his chest. I lift my chin to look up at him, fascinated to see him bring his wrist to his lips. The illusive fangs are back from hiding, and they're piercing his skin, causing a trickle of blood to flow.

"No," I complain, squirming in revulsion when he traps me with his right arm and holds the bleeding wrist of his left arm to my lips. I cannot avoid the blood drizzling into my mouth and down my throat, and after a second, I don't want to avoid it. It doesn't taste like blood. It tastes like life and warmth, of love and peace and wisdom... and I cannot get enough of it.

Ransford once did this, didn't he? I thought I dreamed that.

My eyes fly open, and I gasp in shock as explosions of rainbow colours brighten my mind. Feeling returns to my body in fiery eruptions, every single nerve-ending coming back to life. I've never used drugs, but I cannot imagine a high more amazing or a feeling more ecstatic than what I'm experiencing right now.

Every secret of life and the universe is floating through my brain, answering questions I didn't even know I had. I protest when Alaric removes his wrist, forcing me deeper into his chest to press two fingers of his right hand on the small wounds, stopping the blood flow and when he removes the fingers seconds later, the puncture marks are gone; his wrist is completely healed.

What a neat trick!

Reaching out, I trace the fingers of my right hand over his cheek, gazing up into his stern face. Stretching over me, Alaric retrieves a glass of water from the nightstand near me. He holds it to my lips, and I drink greedily. The cold liquid flows over my tongue and down my throat, quenching my thirst and cleansing my mouth of any left-over blood.

When I'm done, he returns the glass to the nightstand and, scooting down, lays his head on the pillow beside mine. His expression is gentle and kind while he studies my face, running his fingers through my hair. There's no silver in his eyes right now. They're as black as the night outside.

"Are you vampires?" I ask him, and I don't even giggle when I hear the question that I recently would've thought of as utterly nonsensical.

"Vampires?" he scoffs, his lopsided grin so much like Ransford's right now. "We're not mindless monsters, skulking in the dark, sleeping in coffins and craving human blood."

A frown pulls his eyebrows together, and then he shrugs, chuckling sadly. "Well, some of us are."

"What are you then?" I ask. I know I have the answer somewhere in my head, but I need to do some serious filing in there before I'll be able to make sense of any of this.

"Cursed, Aubrey," he says, his tone bitter and his darkened eyes haunted. "That's what we are—cursed."

~~~