A light touch to my forehead wiped away the beads of perspiration that patterned my skin, drifting into my hair and tenderly stroked away my nightmares. For a moment, I was home again; another place, another person. It was a brief blissful grasp of a time that no longer existed, if it had ever existed at all.

My slumber had been fathoms deep as if ghostly arms had dragged me under and held me there, far, far away from the surface and I simply did not have the energy to fight them. The blood that should have satiated my hunger had, in fact, exhausted me, my body decimated by four nights of incessant gorging on my victims, never feeling satisfied, never feeling that it was enough to make me finally stop. I could have gone on and on and the knowledge of that nestled uncomfortably in the back of my mind, like the growing, pulsating egg sack of a spider that you might find tucked away in the darkest recesses of your attic.

I had, during brief interludes, been able to scratch at the upper limits of consciousness, breaking through and taking blurred snapshots through heavy lids that would not let me remain awake for more than a few seconds each time. And each time that I had opened my eyes, Harper had been there, just as he was now, lying on his side and facing me, his hands smoothing back the damp hair that stuck to my temples, his fingers soothing skin that burned as if the sun raged overhead.

His emerald eyes never left me, blazing a trail across my face, his brow wrinkled with anxiety and his mouth set in a tight, grim line. I moaned and shifted towards him on the mattress; closing my eyes again and feeling his warm breath tickle my eyelids. Bunching up his shirt in my clenched fists, I held onto him, focusing only on his touch as his fingers brushed the nape of my neck, tracing the contours of my shoulders and slid down my back, making me shiver involuntarily.

I flinched when he kissed me, not expecting the softness of his lips as his mouth moved across my forehead and down my nose, finding my mouth and sucking gently on my bottom lip. His hands were firm on the small of my back as he pulled me against him and he held me there for a moment, his face touching mine as we lay still, just listening to each other's soft breaths. Finally I could stand no more and opened my eyes, wondering if I would surface fully to find someone else had taken his place; the intimacy of his touch more alarming than any hit or bite endured during my time in his basement pit. But it was still Harper looking back at me, still Harper's hands holding me and still Harper's mouth on my skin.

I crushed my mouth against his and his body stiffened as if he didn't quite know how to react and for a moment, I thought that he might pull away and leave me dejected and burning up on the thin make-shift bed. Soon I felt him respond, his tongue suddenly moving with mine, more insistent now, more like the Harper I had come to know. The hands that had touched me gently now pushed me onto my back and he rose above me, straddling me and tugging on my dirty t-shirt which he deftly removed and tossed over one shoulder. Unbuttoning my jeans, he roughly yanked them down my thighs, almost pulling me off the mattress with them and he discarded them too, looking down at me as I lay underneath him in just my underwear while he remained fully clothed. There was a time when I would have felt vulnerable like this, laying half-naked and at his mercy as he surveyed me with that dark, predatory look in his eyes. Instead I just grinned and hooked my legs around his waist pulling him against me and enjoying the roughness of denim against my thighs and his shirt buttons scratching at the skin on my stomach.

He kissed me hard now, his teeth nipping at my lip and chin, before finding my throat. Surprisingly he didn't bite down, instead he travelled lower, his tongue trailing down my chest until he reached my breast, releasing it from the cup of my bra and covering the nipple entirely. He sucked hard, just below the cusp of pain and I gasped, clutching at his hair and holding him tight as his tongue rolled over it again and again. When he moved over to the other breast, I sucked in a breath as his teeth pierced the fleshy part, enough to draw blood and his tongue lapped at the small wound, while encircling my nipple with his thumb, already so achingly hard under his touch.

Nuzzling at the firm flesh of my stomach, he went lower still, running his nose over the silky fabric of my underwear and I instinctively strained my groin upwards, wanting to feel his face between my thighs. Pressing his lips to my pubic bone, he pushed the fabric aside and slipped two fingers easily inside of me, making me hiss with pleasure and arch my back as he probed deeper, twisting them as he did so. His mouth moved over my skin lower and lower until finally his tongue found me and he began to tease with long, lazy strokes as his fingers still worked inside me. As I felt the first warm pulses shoot upwards from the base of my stomach, I shoved my fist partway into my mouth, biting down on my knuckles as I came hard, feeling the muscles spasm around his fingers which he didn't remove until I was done.

Not that he was done, mind you. Far from it actually. He rose into a kneeling position and as I looked up at him, I saw flashes of anger spark in his eyes and even though I was still trying to catch my breath, he flipped me over onto my stomach, spreading my thighs with his knees. With my cheek pressed against the mattress, I heard the distinct sound of his zipper as he undid his flies and yanked his jeans down over his hips. When he pressed his hardness against my back, I moaned and squirmed beneath him, hearing him growl in frustration.

Grabbing hold of my wrists, he placed my hands palms flat either side of my head and as he pushed himself inside of me, his hands covered mine so I couldn't move and he thrust upwards, each jut of his hips against my backside forcing him deeper and deeper inside of me. The combination of each thrust, the weight of his chest against my back and his hot breath on my neck had me gasping into the mattress, the delicious agony of not being able to move making me focus entirely on the friction between my thighs as he moved against me again and again, never easing the pressure, never stopping the intensity. He was relentless as always, only this time I sensed a grasping desperation in his actions, a forcefulness in each thrust as if he were goading me, challenging me to beg him to stop. Except, the harder he fucked me, the more I didn't want him to stop. Four days of feasting on blood was swept away as Harper did what he did best, feeding me and fulfilling me in a way that no kill ever could. I could only ever want more.

With one final thrust of his hips, he came with a guttural angry growl, interlocking his fingers with mine and holding me underneath him as he finished until all I could hear was the sound of our breathing again, this time heavy and rasping, instead of the strange soft intimacy of before. 

Rolling off me, he tumbled onto his back on the mattress and clutched his hair in his hands, a frown scarring his face with dark shadows. I turned over also, still feeling the waves spreading throughout my body, firing up my veins as I lay staring up at the cracked greying plaster of the ceiling. We remained like that for some time, not speaking, not touching, the tension enfolding us as we lay side by side in the gloom, listening to the irritated buzz of the flickering lights in the passageway outside.

Exhausted but finally satiated, my eyes began to close once more, unable to fight the deep pull of slumber but before I went under completely, I heard Harper sigh, like a whisper snaking through the darkened room and when his fingers tentatively touched mine, I turned my head to face him, silently watching him fade as the darkness took its hold.

*********

When I awoke some hours later, I was alone, wrapped up in the thin woolen blanket that always felt scratchy against my skin.

I dressed quickly, trying to ignore the dull pain that still persisted to assault my temples and the sound of the whispering spirits that clung to me like the constant cloud of a wasp swarm around my head. Rooting through the clothes that Garrick had gifted me, I found a pair of bleached out grey skinny jeans and an old band t-shirt that reminded me of the ones Harper often wore and I did my best with my hair, scraping my fingers through it and tugging it back into a high pony-tail.

The asylum was silent as I padded up the corridors towards Benjamin's study and when I got closer, I could hear low voices from within. As I entered the room, I found Harper and Garrick standing in front of the roaring fireplace, deep in conversation. Despite their hushed murmurs, Harper was making animated gestures and the sound of his voice was an angry hiss, like the spitting embers of the fire that raged in the hearth behind them. 

Surprisingly Lucius was curled up in Benjamin's armchair, close to where the two vampires now stood and I was even more surprised to see that he had ear buds lodged into his ears, the thin wire hanging down and plugged into a green iPod that he held tightly in his hands. I blinked and saw flashes of the rapists’ ear buds, the white wire stained with blood and his eyes bulging in fear. Shaking off the memory, I couldn't help but smile as I watched Lucius scrolling through the menu, before finding something he liked and nodding his head in time to the music, his fine blonde hair falling over his eyes. When he looked up and saw me watching him, he beamed and gave me a small, shy wave.

Garrick and Harper stopped in mid-consultation and Harper noticeably stiffened when he saw me and wouldn't meet my questioning gaze.

"Megan, feeling better I hope?" Garrick smiled but I saw the tension in his face and his eyes narrowed as he scanned me, looking me up and down as if he were searching for something.

"I'm fine," I said tersely, not appreciating his attention or the way in which Harper clearly didn't want to grant me any attention at all. Instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets and stared into the flames, biting down on his bottom lip. "What's going on?" I raised an eyebrow, meeting Garrick's gaze with a levelled stare of my own.

"I'm heading out," Harper said, whirling around and stalking past me, almost as if I wasn't there at all.

My hand shot out and grabbed his arm. "Wait, where are you going?"

I wanted to recoil from the coldness in his stare and the way in which he held firm and as distant as always.

"You're not the only one around here who gets hungry, Megan. I didn't exactly get a chance to feed these last few nights on account of your near-mental breakdown." I let go of him immediately, stung by the venom in his tone and the cruel mockery of his words.

Staring down at me, he looked as if he wanted to say something else, but instead wrinkled his nose as if my very presence disgusted him and then he just turned and walked away, not looking back once as he left the room. For a moment, I just stared at the empty space he left behind, feeling the flush of shame and anger creep into my cheeks as his voice lingered in my ears.

"What the fuck is his problem?" I whispered, feeling bewildered and burned once again by his rejection.

"Don't be so hard on him," Garrick said, behind me and I whirled around, glaring at him as he stood with his arms folded across his chest, his long Mohawk hanging down one side of his face.

"Don't be hard on him? What the fuck, Garrick? He's the one acting like an arsehole, not that it should surprise me seeing as he's pretty much an arsehole most of the time."

Garrick raised an eyebrow in response. "An arsehole he might me, but that arsehole also never left your side as you slept off your near-dalliance in Feeder territory. That arsehole stopped you committing suicide."

"Oh don't be so over-dramatic," I sniped, shaking my head.

He stepped closer, looking every inch the demon as the flames danced behind him in the hearth, framing him in a fiery landscape.

"Do you know what we do to Feeders, Megan? We kill them. They do nothing except bring problems to our door. They are a danger to our kind, let alone to themselves. They not only expose us to humans as they blindly give themselves over to the hunger, not caring who they attack or what happens to the bodies afterwards, but they also push the Varúlfur one step closer to wiping us all out. Feeders are unpredictable and threaten the already untenable balance between ourselves and our enemy, so we kill them before the Varúlfur kill us all. And from what Harper told me, you were dangerously close to stepping over that line of madness."

"Dramatics clearly run in the family," I sneered. "I wasn't becoming a Feeder. I was just..."

"Hungry?" he finished. "Feeding again and again without feeling one iota of satisfaction? Not knowing when to stop? Not wanting to stop?" His eyes bored into me and I squirmed under his gaze. "You might not be a fledgling any more, but I've been doing this far, far longer than you have so don't presume to know anything about our way of life and definitely don't dare to challenge my knowledge on the subject of Feeders. I've killed enough in my time so I think you'll find I'm something of an expert and you, my dear, were displaying distinct Feeder tendencies until Harper pulled you back from the brink. And not only did he do that, but he stayed with you, literally glued to your side, looking after you, caring for you."

"Oh yes, because he cares for me so much that he can't bear to be in the same room as me?"

Garrick's hand snaked around the back of my neck and he pulled me close, his face darkening with anger. "How are you still so blind? Sometimes I despair of you, I really do. Is it because he does not shower you with expensive gifts and take you to all those fancy restaurants that most people spend a year on waiting lists to get a damn reservation? Is that the way you measure somebody's affection? This isn't middle class suburbia, Megan. Life is different here, people are different here. The sooner you accept that, the closer you will come to understanding my brother." His grip on my neck loosened slightly and his fingers brushed the skin there, anger giving way to a deep frown that furrowed his brow. "He is an arsehole. I know that more than most. But know this: he is here because of you. I know I have his loyalty and he has mine, but he isn't here because he wants to be. He is here because you want to be and wherever you go, he will follow you. When you went on your little Feeder adventure, he insisted that he go with you. When you lay unconscious with fever, he remained by your side."

"Then where is he now, Garrick? Why did he walk out?" I felt my body deflate, my shoulders sagging as if a heavy weight pressed down upon me, crushing bone and muscle.

"Because he does not want to want you, Megan. He does not want to need you. He does not want the responsibility or the guilt."

"I don't understand. I'm not his responsibility and what in the hell would he have to feel guilty about?"

Garrick sighed and tangled his fingers into my long ponytail, idly playing with a tousled lock of hair. "You became his responsibility from the moment he turned you. Maybe before that even. He sees you in the same way he saw her and it's killing him. He doesn't want another Jenny."

"But I'm not her, Garrick. And even if I did believe that he felt for me, one bit of what he felt for Jenny, I'm stronger than her. I don't need him to feel responsible for me."

He smiled, touching my chin with his other hand and holding it gently between thumb and forefinger. "No," he said. "No, you're not her at all. And you are stronger; far stronger than I ever thought you could be. But you're fooling yourself about Harper and unless you open your eyes, you will never understand him. Like it or not, he does feel responsible for you. And like it or not, that brings him nothing but pain and torment. He is cruel to you because it's the only way he knows how to deal with his demons. If he rejects you, it's because he constantly fears the worst and he believes that if the worst does happen, then he won't feel like he failed you. After all, how can he fail someone he doesn't care for?"

"He thinks he will fail me? Why?"

"Because he failed her, that's why. Because he should have been with her and he wasn't. He sent her out to feed on her own and like the eternal amateur, she wandered into the wrong part of town and they hunted her. Now it takes one hell of a vampire to escape from a Varúlfur mob and Jenny definitely wasn't one hell of a vampire. She never stood a chance. The one time he sends her to fend for herself and she is taken, tortured and slaughtered."

"But that's not his fault," I cried. "How was he to know that she would stray off path and end up getting killed? He didn't fail her, Garrick. If anything he trusted her to look after herself, she should have known not to go outside of Whitechapel."

"The broken heart. You think you will die but you keep living, day after day after terrible day," Garrick smiled sadly. "Only she did die. And she died knowing that he had betrayed her."

"How? How did he betray her?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know anymore but that sick, twisted curiosity of mine won out, just as it always did.

"He sent her off on her own so he could betray her. And what's more is that she knew where he was going and what he was doing."

I gasped. "He was with someone else. He was with another woman."

"Yes," said Garrick, grimly. "He was. Harper betrayed his wife and she died while he sweated out his guilt in another woman's bed. So yes, he did fail Jenny. And he's suffered for it ever since and probably will even when his body is nothing but ash and his soul thrashes in eternal torment behind the gates of Hell."