"Turning me down, and you haven't even seen the ring yet." Alaric chuckles, reaching up to give my hair a sharp, playful tug.

"This is all too strange," I say, gazing down at him. It is all fantastical and ridiculous, and yet, here I sit in the bed of a man I barely know, and though the air stroking my skin tells me that it is night and the thick curtains, black with embossed patterns of vines, are drawn blocking out even the light of the moon, I can see the man lying against the pillows as clearly as if at least one lamp in this room was lit.

"Mr. Slatherty, this is all becoming highly unprofessional," I tell him, pulling at the pink t-shirt top of my pyjamas, trying at least to appear dignified. "People are biting me and snacking on me. You just acted like a mug of delectable hot chocolate, and now you're talking about marriage. What happened to being strongly opposed to romantic dalliances?"

"Oh, I'm just admiring your impressive skills in resisting men's - what did you call it? - somewhat dubious charms," he grins cockily, running his mesmerizing eyes from my face over my cute puppy-covered pyjamas down to the black sheet I'm sitting on. I catch my breath when he looks up again, his radiant eyes like a punch to my gut.

How different those eyes are from the ice-cold steel grey ones that always knocked the wind out of me and made me feel petrified. They are still luminous and reflective, like a cat's, but they are no longer cold, pushing me away. While I gaze into them, their pupils grow, gradually swallowing the silver. They are slowly becoming black pits, sucking me inside.

The room is pleasantly shadowy but not enough to hide us from each other. His dark hair falls over his forehead, making him appear deceptively vulnerable. It is my turn to study him, and I do so, tracing the powerful curve of his jaw and neck to the smooth skin of his exposed chest. He is untouched by age and unmarred by scars or any other blemish one might expect. 

That is not normal!

I remember Ransford having the same untouched skin. The curse definitely has some awesome perks.

Alaric is sheer perfection, causing my heart to skip enough beats to make me light-headed, and it's not just the beauty of his body; it's something radiating from him. Something pure and true amidst all this talk of curses and strange blood rituals. He is a beacon of light. A potent force that's been keeping the Slatherty family together and strong, fighting an enemy that I cannot grasp.

He is exhausted, but his love for his family, his loyalty, and his inherent goodness keep him fighting.

I want to be his!

"That is ridiculous!" I snap, annoyed by the sentimental wave of pure love that almost swept me off the bed to drown me somewhere against the opposite wall.

"Why? I want to be yours too," he says, leaning his head to the side and giving me a sincere smile, only half teasing me.

Honestly! I liked this man better when he was cold and standoffish, telling me that he was terribly sexist and scolding me for being a woman. Right now, everything about him is drawing me to him like a willing moth dashing itself into the flame of a candle.

"You read minds, don't you?" I accuse with a nervous snort. "That's one of your many special skills?"

"Only if they're loud," he shrugs, giving me a mock pained look. "You're a very loud thinker, Aubrey Dankworth."

"What is that supposed to mean?!" I exclaim indignantly. "I think with the same amount of sound as any other person... except when I'm talking to myself... but then I'm speaking, not just thinking. I don't understand what-"

"Why does Ransford get to be Johnny Bravo, but I'm a blasted praying mantis?!" he interrupts my panicked soliloquy and he almost looks really angry, causing me to give an anxious giggle.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I assure him, avoiding his eyes while smirking cheekily.

"You don't?"

"I might be a little high," I laugh, scrunching up my face. "I'm not sure because I've never been high before. Once, when I was attending an antique convention with my mentor, I drank a little too much punch that contained alcohol I wasn't aware of, but I didn't get drunk; I just ended up vomiting all over his shoes," I inform him, and when he frowns, I hurriedly add that I'm not about to vomit now, and assure him that I cleaned Professor Griffith's shoes very thoroughly. "I was really nervous that evening, which is why I overindulged in the punch. It tasted really good and was making me feel better, so-"

I squeal in fright when he suddenly reaches out and, with a hand behind my head, draws me towards him while he rises to meet me. I cannot and do not want to resist when his lips find mine. Their touch sends shockwaves straight through my entire body.

All my nerve endings are overly sensitive since I drank his blood, and I can feel the brush of his lips against mine right to the tips of my curling toes. The kiss starts out tender and light, tasting like air and moonshine, but it soon grows in urgency when, instead of pushing him away, I draw him closer, parting my lips and inviting him in, meeting his passion with my own.

I'm not quite ready for how strong that passion is when it crashes over me in a cascade of warmth. He wraps me in a stormy tornado of clashing emotions, whisking me away from the here and the now and suddenly I don't care about curses or bonds or anything else. There's just me and Alaric and his supple lips.

The crushing chaos of information fighting for dominance over my mind swirls out of reach and settles in the dark recesses of my brain, leaving my head quiet and calm for the first time in days. I'm now only consumed by thoughts and feelings involving me and Alaric, his one hand caressing my hip and the fingers of the other tangling with my hair while his body presses mine into the mattress.

He leaves a track of tender kisses over my temple, along my cheekbone, and trailing down my jaw to my neck and back before, once again, finding my mouth. Finally, all my pent-up fear, anxiety, and confusion leave me on a low moan of sheer bliss.

"Go to sleep, Aubrey," he suddenly says, bracing his torso on his forearms and gazing down into my eyes with a raw, earnest expression.

"What?" I am no master in the romance department, but I'm pretty sure the guy is not using the right words for this event.

"You should sleep now,″ he sighs, rolling off me to lie beside me, his breathing harsh, and I immediately feel the full impact of the loss of his closeness. He is right beside me, but he feels light years away now, as all the thoughts and feelings kept at bay and the presence of every person in the mansion once again crowd my mind and heart, threatening to overwhelm me.

"How am I supposed to sleep when every fibre of my being is firing on all cylinders?" I scoff, sitting up to look down at him again, satisfied to see that the expression on his face holds as much bewilderment as I am feeling. There is no sign of the aloof Alaric Slatherty I met upon my arrival at this mansion.

"Mr. Slatherty," I say, cheekily raising an eyebrow with a bravery I do not feel. "If I'm going to marry anybody to complete the bond or whatever it is supposed to achieve, it will be Liam."

He doesn't look upset by the news, which makes me a little angry, but then again, he's probably reading my mind and can hear my heart beating wildly in my chest, giving away how riled up I am by the Earth-shattering kiss we'd just shared. He must know how much I long for him right now.

"He is the least scary of all of you," I clarify, and a sad smile plucks at the corner of Alaric's lips.

"Liam is without a doubt the best man that I know," he assures me, slowly nodding his head, his inscrutable eyes tracing the contours of my face. "He is kind and generous, and his brilliance makes me feel like an idiot. There is no one more valiant and worthy than he is."

I'm not sure how I should feel when the man who might have proposed earlier and just now nearly kissed me into oblivion is singing the praises of the man I said I would rather marry.

It's annoying!

"He is also not a Slatherty," Alaric says with a long, deep sigh, closing his weary eyes for a few seconds.

"What?"

"Marrying him will only make the problem worse, not solve it."

"He's not your brother?"

"No," Alaric confirms, rubbing a hand over his face. He really needs to sleep and rebuild his strength. I took a lot of his blood, and he took none of mine. "Since he was able to read, Liam has been studying, trying to find ways to reverse the curses. He believes the answer lies in good old neurology and our blood. He wants to destroy the curses for good, save our lives and give us some peace.. and not just us... All the people on Peace Haven."

I can feel the truth of Alaric's words, and I now understand that the turmoil I often see in Liam's eyes is caused by his concern for his family. I saw the way he looked at Saoirse when he arrived home with her today. I could sense how deeply he worried about her wellbeing.

I don't understand all of it clearly, but I'm starting to see the bigger picture. It is missing pieces and requires much better focus, but it is slowly emerging.

"He's not my brother," Alaric sighs, and when I turn my head to look at him, he swallows almost nervously, shoving his hand through his hair. "Not by blood anyway; in any other respect, he is family."

"He's adopted?"

"Uhm... yes."

"He is not under the curse?"

"No."

"So, he stays out of love, not because he has no choice?" The thought warms my heart in ways I cannot describe, and I reach out to touch Alaric's hand when I see the dismay in his eyes.

"Yes," he says, his voice sounding even more broken than usual. "He could've left so many times and have a real life, but he is trying everything he can. He's made a huge difference, but there is still so much we just don't know."

Feeling the sadness wafting from him, I long for the strength and comfort I'd felt in his arms. That sense of security I had within my grasp only a moment ago. For a couple of minutes, he'd been a wall around me, a soundproof barrier, keeping me safe and free, silencing all the strange memories swirling in my brain like stirred-up tea leaves in a cup. I want that wall back for fear of losing my mind.

While kissing Ransford, I did not feel like we were in a cocoon. Most of the thoughts and troubling emotions did move to the background and became a low hum, but it was forced there by raw passion and excruciating emotional pain. His sorrow had been vivid and tangible, like an entity standing between us. It almost felt like there was someone else there with us. Someone I couldn't see or touch.

I didn't experience that now, with Alaric. We were completely alone in our haven. A sanctuary he somehow built around us. Inside it, I could feel his heartache, but it was a dull pain, growing fainter and fainter the longer we kissed. Everything else stopped existing for us.

Ransford couldn't do the same thing because...

"Why is Ransford so filled with despair?" I ask Alaric, knowing that it's probably weird for me to talk about his brother after sharing such an earth-shattering moment with him, but I don't care. I need to know. I need to understand. I can sense that it's vitally important for me to understand.

"I can feel your pain, and I felt Deaglan's earlier, and when Liam kissed me, it was present too, a dull, never-ending throb. With Ransford, it was like a raging inferno of grief and-"

I stop talking, my eyes growing in shock when I notice that Alaric's eyes are shimmering as if they're glowing with a fluorescent fire lit inside them. It could possibly just be the dim light in the room, but the effect is rather startling, and when he parts his lips, I'm sure I glimpse those scary fangs again.

"Alaric, what are you doing?" I whisper, my voice cracking with a mixture of fear and excitement, while I gather the edge of the duvet into a protective bundle at my chest. Alaric closes his eyes and swallows, taking a couple of deep breaths.

"Nothing..." he growls. "I'm burning that settee..."

"Please don't," I laugh softly, leaning over to rake my fingers through his thick hair. "It's not the settee's fault."

"Yes, it wasn't around when you were kissing Liam," he snarls. "Is there anybody else I should line up for you to kiss?"

"I'm not sure," I sigh and giggle when he grabs my hand from his head and gently bites into the soft flesh at the base of my thumb, not hard enough to cause pain or break the skin but hard enough to send pleasant shivers down my back. I giggle again when he narrows his eyes, giving me an intimidating look. "I honestly have no idea why I want to kiss everybody lately. Is it the blood thing doing it?"

"No," he says, running the tip of his tongue over the fluttering pulse in my wrist. He lowers my hand, holding it in his, smirking at me in a way that is disturbingly similar to Ransford and for a moment I think that they've swapped places while I wasn't looking. If he plucks out a sandwich press, I'll know for sure. "You've probably always been a little bit slutty deep down."

"Hey! I have not!" I exclaim, yanking my hand free of his to slap his shoulder. He grabs my wrist and pulls me down to lie beside him, and turning onto his side, he pins my hand above my head.

"Please go to sleep, Aubrey," he groans.

"No, please," I insist, squirming to free myself from his grasp and he lets me go, turning back onto his back. "I need to understand."

"I know," he mutters, "but Ransford's story is not mine to tell. Let's just say he hasn't recovered from severe losses... and probably never will. Binding you to him was a cruel thing to do... to both of you."

I don't want to ask him for more information right now because I can feel that the weight and pain of the losses he's referring to is not Ransford's alone. I have no desire to scratch around in Alaric's wounds.

"Liam placed me under your protection, right?" I ask, sitting up and moving onto a topic that seems less loaded while I gaze into his eyes

"Yes, he did."

"Is that similar to a male lion squirting a perimeter around his territory?" I ask, happy to hear Alaric's beautiful laugh again.

"I didn't squirt a perimeter around you... if that's what you're asking... and neither did Liam... or Ransford... or anybody else... not that I'm aware of."

"Maybe," I concede, narrowing my eyes and giving him a suspicious look that makes him laugh again. "Well then... has he been making me drink your blood in those delicious tomato cocktails I get everyday or in the coffee... or perhaps those capsules that-"

"He injected you with a serum made of my blood," Alaric puts an end to my speculation, reaching out and taking one of my hands in his. "It's almost like a vaccination if you want to compare it with something."

"He vaccinated me?" I did not expect that. "Against what? The enemy?"

"Something like that," Alaric sighs, wearily closing his eyes.

"That is so creepy!"

"Would you rather have one of us urinating a border around you?"

"No," I snort, snatching my hand back so that I can poke him in the ribs, satisfied when he flinches and grabs my hand again, his large palm engulfing mine.

"We decided that it would be the safest thing to do for you when on your first night here... the girl made it into your room and nearly killed you. None of them will do that now. They might want to, but they cannot bite you."

I remember the girl in the tunnel attacking me, but she didn't hurt me; she growled and sniffed and touched me, but she didn't bite me. She could've; she was much stronger than me, but she didn't.

I shiver, the memory of that girl in my room biting my neck suddenly too vivid to stand, and when my heartbeat picks up, my nostrils flaring with emotion, Alaric squeezes my hand, his warmth flooding my senses.

"She killed a baby."

"Regrettably, yes," Alaric hisses through clenched teeth. "We knew your presence was stirring them, but I have no idea how she got out. I'm sorry about that..."

"Out from..." My eyes widen, and I instinctively lie down, snuggling into Alaric's side for comfort. "They're down there, in the cellars."

"Yes, they cannot stand even a glimpse of sunlight, and if they get out... well..." he grunts, bending his arm to stroke my hair.

"Why do I just know something like that? I just knew it. My mind is so full of information, but it is all jumbled. I know that they're living down there, the shadow ones you spoke about, but I don't know why they are still alive. Wouldn't it be better just to kill them? They're dangerous and not really living at all, are they?"

I can feel the answer even before Alaric speaks. The very idea of killing the unfortunate Slatherty children cut through him like a burning blade, my words causing searing wounds in his soul.

I regret saying them.

"You know things because, through the developing bond, you're... like a computer coming online in our network," he explains, and the analogy makes me smile. It's exactly how it feels.

"I think my router needs a reset because I either have a really bad connection or the database is corrupt. Perhaps my brain needs to be formatted."

"It will get better once you embrace it, stop fighting it, and just go with it," he assures me, and it breaks my heart how tired he looks. "We cannot kill them because... because..."

"They're family."

"Yes," he sighs. "We loved the ones we knew before they became what they are now and those we didn't know... It could've been me down there, Aubrey. It could've been Ransford. There's no telling who will make it through the curse and who won't. Saoirse..." his voice breaks, and he swallows, closing his eyes again.

The idea of that tragic girl ending up a mindless, blood-hungry shell of herself twists my insides into painful knots, and I know that I could never kill her either.

"Could my blood help them... could it help Saoirse?"

Alaric turns onto his side to face me and strokes his hand over my cheek, gazing into my eyes, a faint smile touching his lips.

"No, they're not poisoned. Your blood can purify ours when we're afflicted by something making us ill. It also increases your chances of having live, healthy babies, but it cannot heal a mind. Saoirse's struggle is more mental than physical. She'll either find her way or she  won't, but we will keep trying to bring her back."

"But my blood is healing, Deaglan," I point out, "and you said he lost his mind through the bond with a woman he couldn't form an emotional attachment with."

"Your blood is healing him from the poison that was killing him," Alaric says, a frown drawing his dark brows together. "He lost his mind in a different way. He's over that now that their bond has been broken."

"So, the bond can be broken?"

"Yes, if you tried to kill one of us, it should work," he shrugs. "It certainly worked for him."

"I don't want to do that... yet," I assure him and chuckling softly, he turns away and rolls onto his back again. This time, I follow him, lifting my upper body to look down into his face and trace the darkening shadows under his eyes with my fingertips.

"You're struggling," I whisper. "Shouldn't you take some of my blood?"

"Thank you, but I just need some sleep," he smiles, taking my hand in his.

Alaric sucks in a sharp breath when I lean over and lay my lips against his, savouring their air-cooled freshness. Sighing, he drops my hand and tangles his fingers in my hair and, drawing me closer, he hungrily deepens the kiss.

Just when I start to feel the world drift away again, all my senses filling with his taste, woodsy fragrance and the smoothness of his skin under my hands, he pushes me away, his eyes like midnight, as he cups my face between his palms.

"Time to sleep now, Aubrey."

"No," I shake my head, pulling free of his grasp. "You'll make me forget again, and I need to remember. Don't you realise how dangerous it is for me to forget the frightening things that keep on happening to me?"

Alaric's expression softens, and reaching out, he tucks a curly strand of hair behind my ear. "I've never made you forget anything, Aubrey," he whispers.

"I keep on forgetting things, but I still feel them. I just don't remember them, and at moments like now, I remember all of it, and I remember that I'd forgotten these things earlier," I say, anxiety building in my heart. "Tomorrow, I'll wake up, and I won't remember any of this, but I will still feel it, and it will drive me out of my mind not knowing what it is that I'm feeling. So, please, whoever is doing this to me has to stop. Please tell them to stop."

"You're the one doing it, Aubrey," he says, his eyes boring into mine. "You have an incredible skill for putting up mindblocks. I wish I knew who taught it to you and why."

"What?" I bark a harsh, incredulous laugh. "I don't! I cannot..."

"You can... and you do. It's you who makes you forget, Aubrey," he assures me, and I can see the truth of his words in his eyes. "Only you can make it stop."

"Why would I do that?′

"To protect your sanity."

"I'm driving myself nuts to protect my sanity!" Well, to be fair, that does sound like the kind of thing I would do...

"You do seem to have a knack for doing things a little haphazardly," he grins, agreeing with me.

"How do I stop?"

"I'm not sure," he mutters, looking frustrated. "Liam has been trying to help you. You should do whatever he tells you to do."

"He really is kind."

"He truly is," Alaric agrees, narrowing his eyes on my face. "Now, please go to sleep; lying here beside you and having to resist you is absolute torture, and I'm not up to the challenge. Besides, if you sleep, you might be less noisy."

"I'm not noisy!"

"Your mind is... which might be why you put up blocks in it."

"You make me sound like an alien or a weird bug," I grumble, snuggling into his side.

"You might be both."

"I'm Wonder Woman."

"Yes, you are," he grins, turning on his side to look at me again. "Now go to sleep," he whispers, his lips kissing gentle trials around my mouth.

"I'm not sleepy at all," I complain, turning my head to catch his lips and hold them prisoner with mine.

"Yes, you are," Alaric murmurs, pulling his lips from mine and cupping my face to gaze into my eyes. I'm mesmerized, watching his pupils slowly grow and shrink, grow and shrink, like an old camera lens trying to focus. "Sleep now, my love."

~~~