I watched her leave, the spot on my face still sensitive from the touch of her lips against my skin.

Shit, what had I gotten myself into? She had never hidden her interest in me, and even if I couldn't quite understand it, I also couldn't escape the fact that I had come to like the way she regarded me on some level. She was undeniably attractive; I had noticed that from the first, even when she seemed to be nothing but a cold-hearted monster.

Damn it, really, what was I supposed to do?

I forced myself to stop gaping after her. She was already gone, through the tunnel, presumably back to her lair following her humans who had gone on before her during the brightest part of the day. I couldn't let myself get distracted. I had things to do again, too. I started walking back to the main residence, forcing my mind onto what I had seen while she rested during the light of day.

This human rebellion was a tentative thing. It hung as if woven of spiders' thread and one small disturbance could rip the whole thing down.

The people here tried to be optimistic, but it was obvious they knew the risks of what they were doing. Strangely enough, their unease gave me hope, because anticipating future threats made them more likely to overcome them.

I desperately wanted to be a part of overcoming them. The listlessness of my days in the wilderness after finally killing the demon bloodsucker had lifted, and I wanted to move forward with the same determination as I had wanted to kill him. The idea of breaking this cruel world and building a new one where humans could be free called to me.

And the leech, Vienne, was a necessary complication to that.

It was increasingly hard not to actually like her on some level when she stopped playing around with me and acted serious. She could not be more full of herself, but then she would say something like how she wasn't actually necessary and I couldn't help but feel...

I didn't freaking know. She was clearly trouble, and instead of staying away from her like I should have, I kept walking straight towards it—and her—as if I craved a life of difficulty.

Shit. There was nothing I could do, so I would put her out of my mind and focus on finding a place here. It was strange, somehow, to find myself working towards a goal, not alone as in the past, but with many other people who shared my desire to meet the enemy head on.

Strange, but good. I just got my first taste of it, and I liked it.

Things were moving, and I wanted to help them move. Even if it was after my lifetime, as she had cautioned, the idea that I could help prepare the next generation to win the fight was enough to satisfy me. I understood the strategy of waiting until the time was right to make a move, because that was how I had survived my hunt for Jack. Wait, watch, and then strike with lightning speed when I was ready and while they were still unaware.

I pushed open the door to the building in which I would live. The longest I had stayed in any place had been when Vienne had held me captive, but in little less than a year this place would take that title.

Wasting no time, I made my way up the flights of stairs and to the room I had been assigned. It was not that late, but I was going to start training in the morning and I wanted to be well rested. I had seen people working at it today, and this wasn't training with the pretence of self-defense for her guards, this was serious bare knuckled, take down a leech as fast as possible training.

I was looking forward to it, I thought, as I moved around the room getting ready to sleep.

According to Connor, after a few weeks, depending on where they assessed me regarding my skills, he wanted me to take on some training duties. My unique experiences had him wanting to spread around what I knew to other humans, and I was happy to do so. He had been curious about who had trained me, but I kept my mouth firmly shut about Hadron. The cranky old man valued his privacy, and I would not break that trust.

I climbed into the bed and closed my eyes, only to have thoughts of her invade my mind. Brushing them away, I forced my mind to clear and I waited for sleep to consume me.

* * * * *

I woke early, and made my way down to the ground floor to get myself breakfast. There were already a number of people around, including Connor. Everyone ate together here, as they came in. I walked up to the counter and the guy behind it tossed some food onto a plate and handed it to me.

I glanced around, looking for a place to sit. There were plenty of empty places around the long tables, so I went and took an edge, giving Connor an agreeable nod on my way by. Some guy down the table from me greeted me, and I responded in kind before turning my attention to my food.

It was decent, eggs and some sort of mashed cereal that tasted almost like nothing, but I did not really care about the blandness of the food. I finished everything, dropped off my tray in the designated spot and walked outside.

The sky was lightening, but the sun still was not yet visible around the surrounding rock formations. Surely she was already long since at her lair home. I already knew the way to the training grounds well, and the instructor and a couple of guys were already there.

They greeted me, and I returned it before turning my attention to stretching out my muscles before we began.

The training was interesting, drills and sparring, and I was clearly not the only one who thought so because a couple of onlookers stopped and gawked. Probably my reputation preceded me and they were hoping to see how someone who had defeated leeches fought, or perhaps they doubted the truth of what I had done. Or perhaps they wanted to witness how a person who had staked their precious leech handled himself. I doubted that she had told them all about how I had sidetracked her, and I was not about to volunteer that bit of information.

It really didn't bother me that they might not instantly trust me, in fact it gave me that same confidence that this group were not just naive dreamers. They should be suspicious of me, along with everyone new they brought in.

I did well in most of my matches, although every sparring partner was different and a few caught me off guard. The training went on for a couple of hours before we were given a break. I was pleased to note that I seemed no more tired than the others.

Then we returned, and went through another variety of drills. Around the time that the sun hit its peak, I went to my first firearms practice. Since it seemed almost everyone was more accomplished than I was at the skill, I was getting private lessons from a middle aged brunette named Alice. She had surprisingly muscular arms and an air of dedication that hovered around her.

Unlike most of the other weapons, guns were not something I had ever had ready access to. "Will they even hurt a leech?" I asked sceptically.

My instructor met my eyes with her own narrowed gaze. "Yes. Anything delivered with enough force can hurt a leech, but most things won't properly kill them. The best way, as I'm sure you of all people know, is a stake through the heart, potentially followed by sunlight or burning, but other things can certainly slow them down, and one of those things is shooting them. As you can imagine, no doubt, vampires are pretty hard to hit, but damage is damage and damage slows them down."

"Fair enough."

"We don't really know how the vampiric healing works, but what we do know is that injury wears them down and weakens them, and guns certainly cause harm. They're not invincible, even if they like to play at it."

I was well aware of their vulnerabilities, but I didn't say more since it would further remind Alice of the incident between Vienne and me.

"So, imagine we are, at some point, facing a force of vampires coming at us. Guns give us a ranged means to slow them down, and our guns are specifically designed with harming vampires in mind, so they should work better than what the fighters in the human suppression wars used."

"Should?"

"Well, it's not as if we have a vampire that we want to shoot as a test subject. But Vienne says she's reasonably convinced they'll work, so..."

Ah, as always, we were back to her. It was not as if the people in New Haven were obsessed with her, but more like she had indirectly touched everything that they did. Keeping her from my mind was going to be twice the task now that I was here in this sanctuary, and even more so with the way she had said goodbye the previous day.

Thankfully, I was quickly sidetracked from more convoluted thoughts as Alice stopped talking about theory and switched to demonstrating the basic care and function of the simple weapon in her hand. Afterwards, I shot at targets, which was entertaining.

That night, I sunk into bed, surprisingly tired from my day.

* * * * *

As the days stretched on, my time was split between training and time working with Connor, learning how he needed me to assist him. I settled in and I maintained a sense of hectic calm that was only broken occasionally by intrusive thoughts of a particular leech.