Hi all! Thanks for waiting, I tried to be extra careful with the editing, so it took a little longer. I hope you enjoy it either way, and if you'd like to hear more let me know, the next chapter is already in the works.
yours,
-enithermon
***
Jairus nodded to Timothy as he entered, tossing him a purse of coins. Timothy caught it and nodded back. He was grateful that he did not try to stop him to talk. He wasn't sure he could right now. He was also grateful that May and Berin didn't see him pass the kitchen as he slipped by heading for his room. He closed his door behind him, locked it and then firmly slammed his skull into it.
It made him feel a tiny bit better, but hardly enough to stop the low growl that had begun emanating from his chest. He wanted to break something, smash something against a wall.
He looked around, but there was nothing that he felt he would take any satisfaction in ruining. He settled for pacing, tearing his jerkin off and flinging it in frustration at the far wall.
What a fool he had been. A weak fool. Why could he have not just listened to reason, his own reason! And left well enough alone. God, eight times...it had been more than that, many more, but he hadn't the heart to admit just how long he'd been haunting her. He was to the point where he'd been there once a month for the last three months. It was insane. He'd known it then, and yet he did it anyway. If he'd just left her alone, just ignored the persistent gnawing hunger in him that drove him mad every time he thought about her, then she may yet have been his, delivered up to him by some bizarre stroke of luck.
He ran a hand through his hair in a helpless gesture of despair. Why? Why had he done this to himself, to her, and broken every rule he lived by. He stopped, breathing hard and stared at nothing in particular.
He knew why. Every time she looked at him, opened her mouth, smiled, he knew why. For god's sake he'd caught sight of her on her knees scrubbing floors, her skirt tied up between her legs, and had been so mesmerized by the slow rhythmic movement of her body, and so moved by the silly sentimental song she'd been singing that he didn't even know he was being watched until May had cleared her throat loudly beside him with a knowing glare. Swear to god he almost blushed.
Him! He who had watched countless magnates tremble on their knees, and beg for mercy, who fed on blood, and made a career of spreading dread and terror like death on the wind. Blushing like a boy with an infatuation. It was madness.
He sat on the bed with his head in his hands. The whole reason he'd even found her that night was because he was going to her, again. Each time he swore would be the last, until she'd woken up that one night and he knew that it was a promise he could make no one, lest of all himself. From then on he swore each time he'd go to her as himself. Knock on her door, like a man, not a wraith in the night, and each time she'd open the door and he'd lose himself and think it's too soon, I'll do it next time.
He was painfully aware now that every time he'd actually just lost his nerve. He knew that if she knew of him, as anything more than a figure in her nightmares, then he could never come back when she rejected him. He'd spent long nights wondering how it was that he'd come to be so fixated on her, and had never come up with a reasonable conclusion. Apparently reason had never had anything to do with it.
He'd accepted, after a long debate with himself that sometimes these things just happened. She was lovely, but he was not so star struck to think that there were not more beautiful women in the world he could have. But one night of lust was one thing, this was something else. He wanted to be her friend, and to have her as his. He sighed heavily and groaned into his hands.
And now she was going to leave. The fact that she had remained at all had shocked him, and he knew that their relationship, as it was, was strained at best. It didn't help that every time he fed from her, her blood sang through his veins and screamed 'more'. He'd kept tight control over himself, especially after he'd pushed her too far that first night.
He'd been so delirious with pleasure that she would actually offer herself willingly to him that he'd forgotten himself completely and lost himself in her incredible warmth, and the erotic sensuality that came over her in his arms. Just as he'd lost himself each time before in the storm of emotion and desire that were her eyes.
He could feel his blood flow hotly at the thought of her, his cock and fangs responding almost in concert. He shuddered as he tried to rein himself in, battling the twin hungers that had become his constant companions these last weeks. The pain of having her, just a little bit, everyday was like a delicious torture. He wished so badly he could take more, pull more deeply from her and feel her blood wash satisfyingly down his throat, but he knew she couldn't hold herself back when he did that, and so he was trapped. Pinned between his need to take her completely, and make her his, and his need to keep her, not to frighten her away so soon after he'd gained her.
If only he didn't have to choose, if he could have both. The fantasy overtook him, and he allowed it to. It was what he clung to, what had kept him sane while he'd held her tightly to him listening to her low sexy moans. He lay back onto the bed closing his eyes. Wishing had never made anything so.
Thea moved in a haze, nodding briefly to timothy who watched her from the entrance of the study. She made her way slowly up the stairs, her body like lead. She dropped her book on the bed and sank onto the floor in front of the fire. Her mind reeled still from her realization. How she felt about it, wasn't yet clear.
Part of her felt hurt, but mostly she was confused. She wasn't even sure what she was hurt most by; The fact that he'd been stealing into her home and seducing her, or that he'd never properly introduced himself. She choked out a laugh at that image. 'how do you do, I'm the vampire who's been drinking your blood.' Perhaps she might not be able to hold that against him after all. She wondered if he'd even thought about trying to talk to her.
She shook her head. Why would he. She was food. But, then she thought again...he'd returned. He said he liked her...what did that mean? That he was attracted to her? Perhaps talking wasn't high on his list of things to do when it came to her she thought sardonically. Part of her was also strangely flattered, though the idea of being singled out, even for somewhat 'positive' reasons, didn't sit well with her.
Stop, she admonished herself, I have to get this straight in my mind, because I'm just going around in circles.
"Forget him Thea, what do you want?" she asked out loud. That was a good question. She didn't really have an answer. "Okay, what don't you want?"
To be alone. She definitely didn't want that. She could be, she'd done it long enough, but she was so tired of it, and this small taste, this vague sense of being welcome, and occasionally even useful would make it that much harder to go back. She also didn't want to go back to the village. That wasn't even possible. But she didn't want any other village either, and she honestly couldn't imagine what a city might hold for her. She'd end up on the streets trying to feed herself with all the rest of the world's hopeless people. So then she'd like to stay right?
'But only if he wants me to,' she qualified silently. She didn't want to be a burden. He only needed her blood because he now had too many to look after, it wasn't as if she were necessary...convenient at best.
Alright, she decided, she'd ask him, honestly, if he wanted her to stay, and if he did, then she would. She nodded satisfied. One problem down, one hundred more to go.
