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Ghosts Ch. 02

By: redheadwriter



Once Lena was back in her own apartment, doors locked, windows bolted, mechanical alarm armed and magical wards activated, she could finally relax a little. She sank down onto the bed, curling up into a fetal position as tears began to roll down her face. 

She hated him, and more than that, she hated herself. It was so hard to deny him, though; she had loved him more than anyone else in the world once, and some of that feeling remained. She knew that she would be lying to herself if she said she didn't also desire him on a physical level. Her body still had the languorous heaviness that only came with a good, satisfying fuck, and that was something she hadn't experienced in years, since Seth had left her. 

Though Lena tried to maintain her anger, she couldn't help but remember the good times with Seth. She had to admit that without him, she would probably be dead now. He had saved her life countless times, including the first time they had ever met.

It was almost 10 years ago. Lena had been 15, a sophomore in high school. Walking home from school, a tall, slender creature had appeared in front of her from seemingly out of the air. Its eyes had captured her immediately. Their colors swirled like the storm-ridden ocean - blue, green, gray, and silver fire that entranced her so deeply and completely that she did not notice the creature's spidery hands or long, lipless mouth revealing wickedly pointed teeth.

She stepped toward it, welcoming its deathly kiss, and she would have been left a soulless husk had fate not intervened. The creature gave a scream, sharp and painfully shrill, as a crossbow bolt pierced its shoulder. The connection broken, Lena shrank back, running right into the young man behind her who had just saved her - Seth.

He pulled her along as they fled from the enraged incubus, urging her to run as fast as she could even as her lungs began to burn and her legs began to shake. Finally, they reached a church, and safety. 

The incubus, impatient for a meal, did not linger once they reached their haven, and they were soon able to leave. Seth insisted on walking her home, and Lena, still in shock, was happy to let him.

It was a long walk, and they talked for most of it, getting to know one another. There was a connection between them that they both sensed and that had nothing to do with him saving her life. Despite knowing nothing about him, Lena trusted Seth completely; instinctively she felt an inner strength in him that she thought would not let her down. 

Lena sighed bitterly, thinking about how young she was then, and how stupid. She had wanted to trust because there was no one else for her to look to. Her father had left when she was 6, leaving Lena, her mother, and her two younger siblings to fend for themselves. Her mother, gentle and helpless, had never held a job in her life. She had been the model housewife, cooking, cleaning, and popping out kids, but she knew nothing about how to hold down a job or manage what little money she brought in. Lena had started working odd jobs when she was only 10, doing whatever she could to help out, but their apartment was in one of the worst areas of town, their wards cheap and not terribly effective. Lena had always had to be strong and take care of her mother and her siblings, and it frightened her that her strength had failed. At the same time, she felt a thrill of happiness at the fact that someone else had been strong enough to save her.

Seth left her at the door, and she stood there a moment after he walked away, one hand to the lips he had just kissed as if to hold the sensation more closely to her. The next morning, he was there waiting to walk her to school. He was there the morning after that as well, and the one after that. 

Seth told her a little of his past, although he didn't tell her everything. He was 19, and his parents where both dead, killed by a pack of werewolves. He had been on his own since he was 16, when he had decided that he had seen enough death at the hands of the supernatural creatures that were now threatening to overwhelm humankind. He had found a teacher, a man who, like him, had lost more than his share to the beasts and wanted to take something back. Seth fought them, and he was good at it. Soon, Lena asked him to teach her how to fight beside him. He had agreed.

Lena, lying on her bed, thought about how that single decision had changed her life. With months of study and hours of physical training every day, she had become a hunter, someone who could find and kill the creatures that preyed on human beings. She and Seth had fought and killed together, and they had worked together with an exquisite precision that had saved both of their lives more than once.

In battle they were equal, or near to it; despite Seth's years of experience, Lena's physical strength and mental discipline made her a quick study. Emotionally and sexually, however, Seth ruled her absolutely. Her first lover, her only lover, he had shown both the strength and the vulnerability that her flesh held.

As Lena remembered their first time together, her breath caught, and she shivered slightly. It seemed strange that a memory 10 years old could still hold so much heat for her, but she supposed that every woman felt that way about their first experience.

An incubii, like the one that had attacked Lena on the day she met Seth, had attacked 3 children the day before, kids that Lena had babysat when she was younger. Incubii, soul suckers, used their kiss to drain a mortal of all desire to live. Even the most pleasurable sensations were agony to victims, and the incubii fed upon that suffering for as long as the victim lived, which was never long. Lena was horrified to hear about the children and determined to seek her revenge.

They had found the creature who was responsible, along with 4 others of its kind. It had been a close fight, too close - Seth had very nearly become a meal for one of the incubii. They staggered to his apartment, covered in gore, both of them shaken by the close call.

They didn't speak; there were no words for the fear of death and joy for life that they felt at that moment. They undressed each other and showered together, removing the taint of the demonic blood they had shed. His hands were firm on her body as he explored her breasts, roughly squeezing the small, tender globes to her growing moans. His hands slid down her waist, over her hips, between her legs where he found her wet and ready. 

He pushed her against the shower wall, and though she cried out in pain as he entered her, he thrust forcefully, insistently. It had been painful at first, but it was a pain she had wanted; it reminded her that she was alive. The pleasure that had come after had seemed almost unbearable by contrast. As he felt her tight pussy loosen and grow slicker, heard her breath grow faster and felt her nails digging into his back, he had increased his tempo, slamming himself in and out of her.

When the orgasm had broken over her, her muscles had turned to jelly. He had carried her to his bed and laid her there, wet and naked, her limbs sprawled like those of a broken doll. His eyes had devoured her, and she had reveled in the naked longing in them. She owned him as totally as he owned her, she thought then.

They had spent the entire night exploring each other. When she grew sore from his rough fucking, he brought her with his mouth or his hands, knowing exactly how to tease her sensitive clit. He taught her how to please him just as well; he loved to see her on her knees in front of him, her mouth on his cock as his hand tangled in her mane of dark hair, her eyes rolled up to meet his as she fucked him with her mouth. 

They had fallen into an exhausted sleep sometime near dawn. The next day, she had told him she was moving in with him. He had said nothing, simply driving her to her house to get her things and bringing her back.

It wasn't long after that when she cut off contact with her family. She hadn't wanted to, and she still kept a covert watch over them, but the creatures that prowled the darkness, the creatures she fought and killed, would have loved to have found them and made them pay for what Lena did. When Seth had told her that, she didn't want to believe him, but when attacks in her old neighborhood began to occur more frequently, she knew that he was right. The beasts were looking for her family, and if she didn't stay away from them, they would be found. 

They had lived and fought and fucked together for 4 years. It was a precarious life, one that they both understood could be over at any moment, but Lena found joy in its very tenuousness. Each time she killed, she knew death and beat it back; each time they fucked, she embraced life, consumed by the sharp pleasure she found with Seth.

And then he had left. He hadn't even said goodbye, just packed up his things while she was gone and left a note: "I'm leaving. Don't try to find me."

Lena had thought at first that it was some kind of trick, something one of the more cunning and vicious of the beasts had thought up to bring her pain, but after weeks of searching, she had to admit to herself that he had left, and that he had done it voluntarily.

Forcing thoughts of his desertion away, Lena got out of bed and walked toward the bathroom, shedding her clothing on the way. She needed a bath. She needed to be clean. Maybe if she got Seth's scent off of her skin, she could get him out from underneath it too.

She ran herself a bath, feeling grateful, as she always did, for the large, claw-footed tub that had come with the apartment. She threw in a handful of sweet-smelling sea salts and sank down into the fragrant, steaming tub.

Though she tried to keep from thinking about the previous night, the bruises on her body were a constant reminder of her battle with the wolves, and the sex that had followed - a battle in itself, and one that had left plenty of marks. Her wrists, her breasts, and her thighs all bore his marks, and the loathing and lust that she had felt swirled up inside her once more.

Of their own volition - so she told herself - her hands slid over her breasts, twisting her nipples and sending sparks of pleasure down her body. As her fingers moved lower, she remembered another hand, one with long, strong fingers that knew just how she liked to be touched.

She sank deeper into something that was both memory and fantasy as she stroked her pussy. She started off slow, fingering herself and circling a finger around her clit teasingly, then moving faster and applying more pressure, then slowing again as she neared orgasm. It was so much sweeter, she found, when she delayed that release, holding onto the sweet tension as long as she could.

Forgetting all thoughts of anger, all thoughts of betrayal, she thought only of having Seth on top her, inside her again, overwhelming her with his speed and strength until she was helpless before him. The violent pleasure of their recent encounter was everything they had ever had before, and more; it had been made so much stronger by the years that they had spent apart.

As she came, she cried out his name, her voice helpless and soft. 

"Hello, Lena," he responded, leaning against the door.

Lena shrieked, shooting to her feet and slopping water onto the bathroom floor.

"How the fuck did you get in here?"

"I picked the lock," Seth replied wryly. "And your alarm isn't great, it's got an override code that isn't hard to find. Your wards are pretty good though, although you need to have the one above the door replaced. All I have to do is knock it off its ledge and system goes down."

His eyes roamed her body as he spoke, and it held the hunger that it had always held for her. As he took a step toward her, however, she stepped backwards out of the tub, wrapping herself in thick white towel.

"Get out," she said, quietly and firmly. "I don't want anything to do with you."

Seth smirked at her in his infuriating manner. "You don't? So last night was nothing? And that little scene just now also meant nothing?"

"Yes," she said, sounding more firm than she felt.

As he took another step toward her, she bent down beside the bath tub. When she straightened, she had a gun in her hand. "This is your last warning, Seth. I loved you and trusted you, and you fucked me over. Despite what happened last night, which I fought you on every step of the way, if you recall, I don't want you back. I don't need to go through that again." She pointed the gun levelly at his chest. "Get out. Now."

Seth's expression didn't change as he backed out the bathroom door. "Be seeing you," she heard him call as the front door clicked closed.

Ghosts Ch. 02



Brent gaped. A pained look crossed his face, and I could tell he wanted to say no, but he understood the balance of power here. He was only human, after all He glanced at me and his expression was one of genuine regret. I ignored him. I was experiencing a host of conflicting emotions. On one hand, I was appropriately terrified of the vampire standing next to me. Second gen Vamps are considered less...predictable, more dangerous than first gen. Their bites were said to be the most painful thing a human-or feeder-was capable of experiencing. Of course most humans don't even really know the difference between them. I wonder if Brent can tell. Fuck, how can I tell? Who knows. It hurts my head to try and remember.

On the other hand. I wasn't facing more conditioning. The Vamp wanted a self-aware slave. If I were to get out of this place, maybe escape was a possibility. I stifled the sudden wave of hope I experienced. It was a major long shot. But it was something. And it had been so long since I'd experienced any sort of break from this monotony that I almost welcomed it. No conditioning. I felt like I could put up with anything if I was allowed to keep what was left of my mind. Then the Vamp was taking my hand and leading me back down the stairs, and I came back to myself.

"-and I want her files. All of them." He was saying.

Brent began to protest. "We don't usually-"

"Get me the files."

Brent swallowed nervously and nodded, smart enough to shut up. When a Vamp tells you to do something, you do it and worry about the consequences later. 

The rest happened so fast it was surreal. I assumed there would be more paperwork, or something. How had it been last time, with Victor? That part was all blank. Pretty soon I was being led outside, my hand in the Vamp's again. Lex. He'd mentioned his name was Lex. I glanced at him, but his expression was indifferent. I couldn't help stopping for a moment when we walked out of the center and just staring around. Trees, blue sky, sunlight. It was blinding. How long had it been since I'd seen it? How much of it would I see over the next three months? I suddenly felt ill. I was going to be locked in a room again, it was going to be just like before, I wasn't going to outwit a vampire, and it was stupid to entertain the idea.

Lex was staring back at me with his head cocked slightly, and I realized that I had just stopped walking and was resisting him as he pulled my hand. Shit. "I'm sorry." I muttered and followed along.

He gave a half smile. "She speaks."

His car was nice, and new, and shiny, which wasn't surprising. There's no such thing as a poor vampire. I hunched out in the seat and looked at my hands. I had no idea how to act. Normally I would feign being fully conditioned to the best of my ability- subservient, docile...brainless. But he didn't want that. The problem was I had no idea what he did want. I was suddenly desperate to please him, to avoid whatever consequences there were to displeasing him. The fragmented memories I had of Victor's punishments were motivation enough in that regard. But I wouldn't be able to. There was no fucking way I could completely and happily participate in everything he wanted to do. Would he be angry? Did he want obedience? Or did he want a girl who would fight him? Is that why he wanted a sentient feeder?

"Hey."

We were at a stoplight and he was looking over at me and I realized I was visibly panicking...chills, breathing too hard, everything you don't want to be in close proximity to a vampire. 

"Your fear is giving me a hard-on. If you don't get a handle on it I'm going to have to fuck you as soon as we get in the door of my apartment."

I swallowed. He was half smiling, I had the feeling that he was fucking with me, but also moderately serious. There was a playfulness in him that was perverse. It made him more terrifying and more approachable at the same time. My extra senses were picking up an extreme and deep awareness from him, much more so than I'd ever experienced with Victor. He was incredibly intelligent. There was no point in acting with him, I realized. He would see right through it. And I sensed that he would appreciate a lack of bullshit. Most second gens did. They were sociopaths, sure, but they...pain. My vision went blindingly white and I gasped, quickly forcing my mind to a different line of thinking.

"You okay? I paid a lot of money for you, I'm going to be pretty pissed if you stroke out before we get home."

He still looked amused, he was teasing me, and I realized there was no real maliciousness in him. He wasn't angry. In fact he seemed extremely relaxed, and when we pulled up to the small apartment building he got out of the car and stretched against it. He looked like a big cat, I thought. More so when he yawned, and I was faced with the impressive sight of two gleaming, fully extended fangs. Standing on the other side of the car, with him facing away from me, I had a fleeting impulse to run. I was a rabbit five feet from a wolf.

"It would be stupid." He was beside me, and taking my hand again. I wished he'd stop moving so fast. He didn't seem inclined to suppress it, to appear more human. I wondered if he could read my mind...it had certainly felt like he was divining something, when he made me lock eyes with him in the stairwell. I didn't think it was mind reading, exactly, but he was picking up on a hell of a lot. I led him lead me up a few flights of stairs and into a surprisingly modest apartment. It was...cozy. Earth tones and squishy carpet and strange but pleasing artwork that must have been done by Vamps. The kitchen looked as though it was in frequent use, and my jaw dropped when a huge, wolfish dog padded up to me. 

I tried to remember the last time I'd seen a dog and couldn't. There was a tense moment when I held out my hand and he sniffed it, and then he was wagging his tail and licking my fingers and I remembered something about myself, which was that I really fucking like dogs and had a higher opinion of them than most people, and I was leaning over petting him and scratching behind his ears. 

"He likes you." Lex walked over to a comfy-looking couch and plopped down on it, stretching. He looked very tired.

"What's his name?" I asked, suddenly feeling less reserved. I couldn't help but feel that a Vamp with a dog was less terrible than most.

"Jack." he was looking at me with interest, and I stood up, shifting self-consciously. Then he yawned again, his fangs still prominent. 

"Look, you get a reprieve. I haven't slept in three fucking days." He got up and grabbed a remote from the side table. "I'm going to go pass out." He waved a hand and walked towards a back room. "Entertain yourself. The bathroom is right there." He paused before closing the door behind him. "Don't try to leave, I'll notice, and I won't be pleased."

I didn't doubt it. I think I'd tried to get away from Victor when he was sleeping once. It hadn't ended well. Vamps don't seem to sleep like humans do-they aren't fully unconscious, and their senses are vastly superior. No, if I was going to get away from him, it would have to be when he left. And I would have to cut out the tracker in my left shoulder. Maybe...maybe it was possible.

Brent let me watch television in the Center, so it wasn't exactly a novelty, but I spent several hours watching 24 hour news channels in between exploring the apartment. If there were rules, he hadn't mentioned them, and if I was going to be here for three months I figured I'd better familiarize myself. I found bottled water in the fridge, but wasn't brave enough to try the food even though I was starting to get hungry.

I was trying really hard not to think about what would happen when he woke up. I snuggled with Jack on the couch, and that was novel...it had been so long since I had snuggled with anything, or been touched by any living thing in a manner that was not unpleasant. I must have had a dog once. I tried not to think about it. The migraines that accompanied memories were almost always brutal. 

"I'm going to have to borrow her from you, Jack."

The dog looked up and whimpered. How had he opened the fucking door without making a sound? I turned and looked at him, and he was leaning against the doorframe, very shirtless and very...predatory. 

He held out his hand. "Come on ,peyia, I'm hungry." 

He sounds hungry. His voice has a growly edge. He just said a sort of nickname for me in Vamp language, and for some reason hearing him speak that language made me more freaked out than I already was. But I was walking forward, he was leading me into the room, and pulling me towards the bed, and I was sitting down next to him on it and trying to ignore the dull roaring in my ears, trying not to think. He trailed his fingers down my back. "Have you ever been bitten by a second gen before?"

I considered my answer. "Not that I remember."

His hand paused at that and he considered me, then pulled me down so I was on my side, facing him. 

"Well, its going to hurt, very very badly. Struggling is normal, and encouraged, because it's pretty fucking hot." Then he grinned, fangs showing, and it was fucking terrifying. Abruptly he flipped me and pulled me to him as if we were spooning, and I felt a prick and then...pain. The strangest and...worst, pain I had ever experienced. It washed over me, turning my mind over, making me momentarily paralyzed, and then I was fighting, kicking, trying with everything I had to get away, because it was too much, it was going to destroy me. 

He growled appreciatively and pressed me down into the bed, a leg wrapped around my legs, arms wrapped around my chest. It continued for minutes, or hours, time ceased to make sense, and then it lessened to a dull throb, and I could breathe, and he was suckling my neck, and my struggling slowed until I was lying limp beside him. Tears were running down my face and I was gasping for air. Jesus Christ. He continued to suckle on my neck, running his hand up and down my side gently, soothing me. For a moment he stopped, looked down at me, and wiped the moisture from my face with thumb. 

"Easy peiyla." He whispered. "You're alright." For some reason I was relieved that he was willing to acknowledge the ordeal that was his bite, the intensity of what he just put me through. And then my relief fled when he shoved his hand down my pants.

"You're wet." He growled.

Oh god, I was. He slipped a finger into me easily, and I cringed, shrinking away. And suddenly there were memories of reacting like this to pain before, other men, using it against me and I felt sick, and I just wanted to be not touching him, and I kicked and jerked and ended up on the floor on the side of the bed, crouching away from him, and I cringed, waiting for the inevitable blow, and then I realized I would have never been able to pull away unless he'd allowed it. Warily I stood up, and he was looking at me with a half-amused expression. He held out his hand.

"Come here." His tone was bemused, gentle. He didn't seem angry. I walked back over and sat down obediently, but my knees were shaking. He eased me down so that I was facing him, then pulled me against him, resting his chin on the top of my head. I felt a rather sizable erection pressing against me and I tensed, but he made no further attempts, just ran his hand up and down my back.

Finally he said "Do you always get turned on when you're in a lot of pain?"

His voice was conversational, not mocking, but I felt deeply ashamed. I had the feeling that I might. 

He spoke into the top of my head, nuzzling me. "Because it's a pretty normal reaction, for what you are."

He pulled away and studied me with an unreadable expression, then pushed some hair out of my face. "But you don't even know what you are, do you?"

I didn't know what to say to that. Of course I didn't. He knows who I am. Somewhere in this apartment was a stack of files detailing my history, and I itched to look at them even though the knowledge would probably send me into a seizure.

There was whining, and scratching at the bedroom door. Lex smiled and slapped my ass, making me jump, then he sat up. "Alright. Jack says you've had enough. You hungry?" I nodded numbly, finding it a bit difficult to shift between the prospect of my impending rape and the prospect of dinner in a smooth fashion.

Okay...he was taking me into the kitchen. I stumbled a bit as he led me to the stool and he steadied me as I fought a wave of dizziness. "You're going to have to get a little more meat on you if I'm going to be feeding on you regularly. What the hell did they feed you at the center?" 

I grimaced. It was true, I was underweight. It had just ceased to be important during my uneventful captivity. "The girls were fed some kind of...vitamin enriched porridge?" I tried not to throw up in my mouth upon remembering it.

"Sounds delicious." He put a glass of orange juice down in front of me and I gulped it, needing the sugar and fluid after the blood loss.

"Sometimes Brent brought me other things." I offered. "Chinese food, or pizza."

"That was very generous of him," he muttered dryly. I got the impression he really didn't like Brent, which was strange. I would expect at most, indifference.

"What would you like to eat? I have most of the basics here."

This was a little bit surreal. One of the most lethal creatures on the planet had his head in the fridge, pushing around milk and cheese, and his dog was nosing my hand for pats. It seemed so inappropriately domestic.

"You're going to...cook for me?" 

He shrugged. "I'd make you do it, but I don't think you could stand."

That was a fair point. I wasn't sure I could stand either.

"Well? What do you like?"

That was a surprisingly hard question. I literally couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten something that wasn't pizza, Chinese or brown vitamin gruel. 

"I like...breakfast food."

And with that, a vampire was making me French toast.



Ghosts Ch. 03



We were eating across from each other in a bizarre imitation of a happy couple sharing an evening meal. Occasionally he would stop and simply watch me eat, amused, but I was dutifully ignoring him. I had learned to appreciate the small pleasures when they presented themselves, and the food was amazing. The toast was drenched in honey, the bacon was crispy, the eggs were yolky but not undercooked, and it was the best meal I'd had in years.

"You are enjoying that entirely too much."

I shrugged. It was made and I was eating it and he wasn't going to take it back now. He started laughing.

"I promise you, I will make you French toast again."

I glanced at him. I didn't believe or disbelieve him. He could be an unusually considerate Vamp...his actions thus far were certainly more generous than they could have been. But for all I knew he was toying with me and any moment I would be locked in a room and isolated except for periodic feeding and fucking. For the moment, I was trying to remove myself from such considerations with the soul-warming flavors of bacon, and he was distracting me. I shrugged again, and wished he would shut up.

He did, actually. Only when every bite was scraped from the plate did I turn my attention back to Lex, who was studying me in that unnerving, detached manner. 

"Peiyla." He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table, his tone suddenly serious. "You give me these three months, and I will give you freedom. I'll take you back to the States with me."

I momentarily choked on my orange juice. Had I heard that correctly?

In that instant, everything was on the line, and I dropped all pretense, all appearances of subservience, sitting up straight and looking him as close to in the eye as possible without actually making contact. In the dimly lit apartment, the black had receded from his irises, leaving them a smoky gray that was slightly more human in appearance.

"I don't believe you. Why would you do that?"

He looked surprised, then amused. "Why not? It's easy enough."

I shook my head. "No. It would be so much easier for you to tell me that to gain my compliance and then drop me at the end of your stay."

He smirked. "I don't need your compliance."

"But you'd like it."

A silence hung between us and he shifted in his seat. And there it was. A moral vampire? Not quite. But it was true, he hadn't been pleased with the center, he didn't like feeder-slaves, at least not this country's version of them. What had he said? Willing victims. That was his preference.

"Tell me why it benefits you to take me back with you."

He shook his head. "Cynical, much?"

"Extremely."

"Alright." He stood and walked around me, his movements far too fluid to pass for those of a man. "Maybe I want to keep you a bit longer than three months."

"Why am I so special?"

He raised a brow. "Your blood's top shelf, peiyla." He gave me another of this unsettling, toothy grins.

Admittedly, I had heard that before. I wasn't blind to the fact that I was different from most of the Ghosts...whatever genetic changes they had undergone in the shift from human to feeder, I had more of it. I didn't even look entirely human, though I was sure I could pass.

"How much longer would you keep me?" I asked, having no reason to believe whatever he told me. But even as I asked, I knew it didn't matter. He could intend to keep me forever or drop me naked with no resources at the airport, and the truth was I would still have a better chance at freedom than I would in the hellhole that Australia had become. Any plan that would involve escape ultimately ended in a plane trip out of the country...because of what I was I would never have rights here, and I couldn't fake DNA to get a job or relocate. No, my only options involved being elsewhere...and if he could just get me that far...

This was why it was extremely important he not be bluffing. If he was telling the truth, my plan must be altered entirely...instead of looking for the first possible window of escape during my time with him I had to stick it out and play the part for three months- and not only did I have to cooperate, I had to hold his interest so he didn't change his mind. Fuck.

"I would keep you there legally. The typical time for a feeding contract is one year, during which time you would receive a substantial salary. Enough to start your life over, after the year is up." He spoke evenly.

I was vaguely familiar with the more civilized Vamp-feeder slaves of other countries, and that actually sounded about right. I sighed.

"The better you make it sound the less inclined I am to believe you." 

He barked a laugh and spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. "There's really nothing I can do about that, peiyla."

I struggled with a sudden sense of frustration. I didn't know how the hell to process this. He was playing with me, he had to be."And what do you want from me, exactly?" I cringed at how my voice cracked. Out of all that had happened to me, it had been a long time since I'd felt this genuinely vulnerable. This was real hope. My fate was his whim.

I had a moment of disorientation, because suddenly he was holding me by the waist and I was sitting on the counter in front of him, our faces almost touching. His gaze was intense, but his mouth was still quirked in his slight, almost ever present smirk. "Your submission."

"I don't know what that means."

He leaned forward and brushed his lips against my neck, teasing, and I shuddered at the feel of his hot breath against my skin. I felt him smile, and his voice deepened. "Oh, you will."



Ghosts Ch. 04



After a moment his whole demeanor changed and he went still, silent as a lion before the kill as his lips hovered above my neck. And very soon the stillness became unnatural as he waited, distressingly immobile even as I felt his excitement thrum around me. Protective instincts kicked in and I stopped breathing, stepped outside myself, focusing on calm, calm, steadying my heart rate, lowering my blood pressure, simply existing. Zen. And then he unfroze with all the creepiness of a manikin coming to life, licking up the side of my neck and nipping at my ear. 

"You're pretty good at that power-meditation stuff. You must have had some practice."

I knew he was playing with me, testing my reactions, learning his prey. He trailed his fingers down my arms, then began edging his hands under my shirt, rubbing small circles over my stomach, slowly moving upwards over my ribs. I wasn't wearing a bra, and his thumbs quickly found my nipples, tweaking them, toying with them until they were stiff and aching.

My nerve was breaking. I began to breathe in shallow gasps as I tried not to move. I had Victor to thank for my intense aversion to touch. Nausea rolled through me as he cupped my breasts, rolling them in his palms. He dipped his head and trailed kisses lightly across my collarbone. The worst thing was that I had no idea what he wanted from me. Did he expect me to respond readily to his seduction now that my freedom was on the table? I wished I was capable of it. I suddenly wanted desperately to make him happy, to hold his interest. 

"You're shaking now," he murmured.

That was an understatement. I was trembling violently, and everything in me was screaming to jerk away from him. Dread filled me. If he wanted my enthusiastic participation, I would never be able to give it to him. He pulled back, examining me at arm's length, and I tried not to shudder with relief.  

"Ahh, the stakes are awfully high at the moment, hmm?" he asked, his voice full of false sympathy. "Awww, look at you, you're absolutely terrified of displeasing me."

My freedom from his touch was short-lived. His oddly rough fingers traced the scars over my arms, and he raised my wrist to his mouth slowly, his gaze piercing. I tried to avoid looking at the centers of his eyes, which were glowing with an unearthly sort of light. The pain raced up my arm as his fangs punctured the vein, his venom working its diabolical magic on my blood. It crashed in waves over me, obliterating all my concerns, until nothing else existed but the sensation. He was holding back, compared to when he had fed from me earlier, because it was overwhelming but tolerable, and to my surprise I began to calm. My shaking ceased, and my head cleared. I felt like someone had just trickled cool water through the feverish mess of my consciousness.

He only took a few pulls of blood before releasing me and regarding me with an extremely pleased expression. He brushed a lock of hair out of my face and I flinched, unable to suppress it, but thankfully he ignored it as he tucked the strands behind my ear.

"Don't worry, peiyla," he drawled, his smile conspiratorial. "I'm completely confident in my ability to gain your undying devotion. It's just going to take some time." 

He grabbed my hips and hoisted me off the counter. "Can you stand OK?"

"Yes."

"Great. Load the dishwasher."

I took the opportunity to observe him discreetly as I did so. He was sprawled on the couch with the sort of casual contentment and boneless grace that I'd formerly only observed in housecats, studying an electronic tablet that cast a dim glow on his features. As far as attractiveness went, he above average, but not to an extreme degree. He wasn't tall- I guessed him for about 5'9, though that still put him at nearly a foot taller than I was. He had dark, slightly curly hair and large, expressive eyes with thick lashes, a strong nose, and sinful lips that were almost always quirked in a slight smirk. It was difficult to say what, exactly, marked him as inhuman, or even threatening, other than the unsettling energy that seemed suspended around him, or the strange fluidity of his movements. Yet despite physical appearances, I couldn't think of him as anything remotely resembling a human man. He was a carnivorous, otherworldly creature with unfathomable motivations, and I wondered if I was crazy for believing he might possibly be an ally in the fucked-up existence that was my life.

After I finished cleaning like the dutiful servant I was apparently expected to become, I didn't really know what to do with myself. I paced the kitchen aimlessly for a while, finally pouring myself a glass of orange juice and curling up in the armchair across from Lex. He was, of course, completely unaffected by my awkwardness, absorbed in whatever the hell he was doing on the tablet. I lost myself in thought as I distractedly scratched the neck of the giant wolf-dog that was rapidly becoming my new best friend. When Lex finally stood and strode towards the door with his unnatural quickness, I nearly jumped out of my seat.

"Come on, little one. It's time to go shopping."

**************************************************



The function of Blood Money (trendy name, right?) is difficult to describe. Basically, it's an exclusive social club that also functions as a sort of pet-supply warehouse for the Vampire elite....and select human participants. Part bar, part mall, park salon and spa, part brothel, Blood Money provides everything a rich Aussie vamp could need to clothe, style, enjoy and exploit their living toys as completely as possible. I didn't have a lot of fond memories of the place.

Lex clearly was new to the area. His surprise was noticeable as he pulled up to the massive building with its flashy and stylish exterior, and he paused outside the towering wooden doors, taking it all in. "I thought there were only perhaps a hundred and fifty Ghosts on the entire continent."

I swallowed, staring at the door and wanting very much to get back into the car. "That sounds about right."

"Jesus." He contemplated the situation for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, let's see your dead-eyed stare."

I was well practiced at that. I turned my face into a mask of blankness, looked straight ahead and forced my eyes to completely unfocus, stood up straight and let my arms hang limply at my sides. And then I was following him inside, and it was exactly as I remembered it from almost a year ago. Dimly lit with a haze of smoke, it was full of first-generation vamps and obviously wealthy humans. I spotted a few government officials, and an aging movie star. There were a few females here and there, but they were all vampires except for the attractive bartenders serving up cocktails to our left. And then there were the Ghosts, who milled about in various states of undress. A tall brunette danced topless on the bar, her movements lithe and sensual, but her blank, unnerving eyes revealed no awareness of the situation. She was a graceful automaton, and nothing more. This was the main room, which we had to walk through to get to the stores and salons further into the building. I wove through the crowd, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, strangely reassured by Lex's grip on my hand. 

He led me straight to the salon. I recognized the sickeningly cheerful curly-haired stylist from my last visit, and she recognized me. She threw her arms around me, smiling and giggling in her over-affected way, all porcelain veneers and facial implants. I just stared ahead, zombie-like, as she circled me and immediately began to examine my hair at different angles.

"Ohmigod it's Kylie!" the use of my assigned Ghost name made me cringe inwardly. She turned towards Lex and gave him a dazzling smile. "It's been FOREVER since I've seen this one. She's so cute and tiny. Isn't she so cute and tiny?? You must be her new owner. I'm Katie." She thrust out a perfectly manicured hand with multicolored fingernails. After a moment, Lex accepted it and shook, staring at her as if she were the alien life form in the room, and under different circumstances it would have been hilarious to see a Vamp look so utterly dumbstruck.

He recovered quickly though, and donned snakelike charm, smiling back at her. "I'm Lex. I just got her this morning. And honestly," he leaned forward and lowered his voice as if he were letting her in on a secret. "I've only been in this country for a little over a week. This is all-" he waved a hand "-very new and very intriguing."

She gasped and her eyes widened as if he'd just told her something of grave importance, then her expression turned to one of delight and she clapped her hands together, bouncing on her heels. "Oh honey, don't you worry about a thing. We will get you ALL set up." She grabbed a portable scanner off the counter and pulled the edge of my shirt up, zapping the barcode on my lower back. She pushed a button and two neon-green tickets printed out of the device, which she presented to Lex with a flourish. 

"OK. You should take one of these to David in room 8. All her measurements are in the system, so he should be able to set you up with a wardrobe. Whatever kind of stuff you're into. And then you can take the other one to Ramon in room 10, and he can get you..." she made a vague gesture and giggled, actually blushing slightly "...anything ELSE you might need. In the meantime I'll get started on her hair. God, it's BAD right now isn't it. She'll need a new dye job for sure." 

She studied me critically. It was kind of bad, because I certainly hadn't given a shit about styling it in the Center. It was way too long, and the lower half was jet black, and the upper half was the bizarre assortment of colors that was my hair's natural state.

He shook his head. "No, just cut the dye out of it. Cut it however you like, just not too short."

She looked very dismayed, gave him a skeptical look and waited for a moment as if she was expecting him to change his mind, but he said nothing, and she gathered herself. "OK. And should I do mani and pedi? A facial? How about her eyebrows? Ohhh, they took her earrings out. She should probably have them re-pierced, don't you think?"

Lex smirked and glanced sideways at me, his eyes twinkling. "Absolutely. Do the whole package. I'd like to explore the place anyway. And I think you two-" he clapped me on the back "-need to get reacquainted. I'll be back in a few hours."

I allowed just enough awareness to creep into my face to properly glare at him, and he flashed me a grin before leaving me at her mercy.



Ghosts Ch. 05



My visit to Blood Money was actually surprisingly painless. Despite being impossibly obnoxious, I'd endured much worse than the styling and pampering of Miss Katie Danels. After I was waxed, cleaned, manicured, moisturized, and made-up, Lex reappeared, looking impatient. 

"Ohh, you're back!" Katie exclaimed, flashing porcelain and spinning me around in my chair. "What do you think? Do you love the makeup? I tried to go more natural, but I can put more on if you like a Goth thing... and I had to get her out of those awful black pajamas..." she shrugged and smiled half-apologetically. "I REALLY hope you like it." Then she waited with baited breath, wringing her hands slightly. 

Lex just stared at me for a moment, gaze tangible as his eyes roved up and down my body, making me squirm slightly in my seat. Then a slow smile crept across his face. He looked pleasantly surprised.

"She looks great."

Katie smiled, bounced on her heels and clapped her hands. "Oh good, I'm SO glad you're happy with it! I love new clients, its always such a challenge. Now if you just come right over here I can get you rung up."

After Lex had paid for my visit and been loaded up with a sampler of makeup, product and a few conditioning discs, he took my hand and started leading me back towards the main room. "Come on, we're leaving. I already put our shit in the car."

He was strangely silent on the ride home, seeming lost in thought. I fidgeted in my seat, trying to watch him in my peripheral vision without attracting his attention. A tense energy was emanating from him. He seemed almost angry about something, and that couldn't be good.

When we pulled into the parking lot he just sat in the car for a while, staring ahead at nothing, expression unreadable. I grew increasingly anxious about the situation. Finally he leaned his head back against the seat and sighed, grabbing the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut in a gesture so characteristically human that I wondered if it was entirely feigned. Then he laughed mirthlessly.

"This country is so fucked. It's..." he shook his head in disbelief "...kind of impressive, honestly." His smiled slightly to himself and glanced in the backseat. "You see that trunk back there? That was the fucking starter kit from the sex toy room. And that was the smallest one they had. It's incredible."

I stared at him blankly, completely unable to tell if he was pleased or disgusted, and then looked at the massive trunk warily. It was unnecessarily decorative, sinuous red markings emblazoned in stark contrast to the glossy black surface, in intricate patterns that made me slightly dizzy if I stared at them too long. Vamp art. 

"Have you been in it?" he questioned, suddenly focusing his full attention on me.

"Have I been in what?"

"Room 10." He was looking at me pointedly and again, I got the impression that he was very angry about something, and it was making me incredibly nervous.

"I...um. Yes." I swallowed. There wasn't any point in lying to him. 

He nodded and gritted his teeth. "I saw the purpose of the back rooms, as well."

For a moment I didn't understand him, because even though I knew he was from overseas it hadn't really occurred to me that would be so out of the loop. Vampires tend to keep each other informed, and his lack of information made him momentarily less intimidating. I sat up in my seat.

"You...didn't know?"

"No. I didn't know. But it's becoming pretty clear now. How often-" he took a steadying breath- "Did Victor take you there and sell you to human men?"

"I'm not sure," I answered honestly. "My memories are...pretty fractured."

"Well, take a wild guess." he muttered irritably.

I hesitated, my brain churning over in the pointless exercise of trying to divine his intentions. Was he actually jealous? Vamps didn't get jealous, in my experience.

He suddenly grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him, his voice lowering to a warning growl. "I think you will find that if you do what I ask you to do, when I ask you to do it, your life will be much more tolerable, peiyla. Now you are going to tell me what was done to you, and you are going to tell me everything you know about how Ghosts are produced, and the flesh trade here, and then maybe you won't have to find out what's in the trunk tonight."

What. The fuck. This didn't make any sense. Why would he possibly care so much? And why was he so mad? The only thing worse than being held in captivity by a sociopath, was being held in captivity by an illogical and unpredictable sociopath. At least Victor had been consistent in his cruelty. Lex released me and got out of the car abruptly, hauling the trunk out of the back, loading me up with the bags of clothes and cosmetics.

He was silent as we reached the apartment, and I entered hesitantly, settling the bags on the living room floor as I watched him warily. He walked over towards the open window and glanced down the fire escape before slamming it shut. "Jack's out." Then he was sitting on the couch and I was staring at his outstretched hand, wanting very much to bolt from the room. 

"Come here, peiyla," he said softly. "I'm not angry with you."

I said nothing as he pulled me onto the couch and settled me against his side, and I struggled to keep my muscles from locking up as he began rubbing his thumbs over my wrists soothingly. He released one to run his fingers through my hair. Though his touch was gentle, it contained every assumption of ownership.

"Tell me how often."

I took a shaky breath. He wanted to know everything? I would tell him everything. There was really nothing for me to lose. 

"If I had to guess, at least once a week. But I know he would take me more often shortly after I'd been conditioned."

"And why was that? Were you a true Ghost before? Like one of them?"

"Not...exactly. Or I would be, but it would wear off. Sometimes I would be aware of what was happening but could do nothing to control my actions, like being a passenger in my own body."

"Do you think any of the other girls are like that? Passengers?"

I grimaced. "I try really hard not to think about that."

"All right. Go on."

"Uhh, well. Because it usually wore off for me and I was more obviously aware, that meant unhappy customers for Victor. The men that are interested in Ghosts don't want sentient women. They could afford to buy those a hundred different ways. Ghosts are less attainable, and I guess because of that they are more trendy, at least as far as sex tourism goes. It's a power trip, I don't know. " 

"I see. Well, that explains why he had you conditioned twelve times over."

Shit, I hadn't realized it had been that often. That was nearly once a month. No wonder my head was such a mess.

"So how many human men are actually into this? Screwing a lobotomized version of your own species, that is the plaything of a ruling species...it seems like a lot of people would take issue with that."

I made a 'who knows?' gesture. "In theory. But its all very secretive, and the waiting list to get into that club is huge. There is plenty of interest, and plenty of money fueling it."

He released me then, sighing, and didn't protest when I scooted a few inches away from him. "Sometimes I wonder if they are even fucking worth it." he muttered to no one. 

I was definitely missing something.

Just then there was a scratching at the side window and Lex got up, letting in an excited looking Jack with some unidentifiable object in his mouth.

"What have you got for me, huh boy?" he grinned, pulling things from the big dog's mouth, and when they were in his hands I could tell that it was two wallets, which he began thumbing through immediately.

"Ohhh, good boy." He praised, scratching behind the dogs ears, who barked and wagged his tail appreciatively. Then he stepped over to a round container on the kitchen counter and pulled out a bone, tossing it to Jack, who caught it and trotted over to the far corner to enjoy it.

A dog that let itself outside, and stole wallets? I studied him as he gnawed on the bone like any other mutt, and the only things that stood out as unusual were the odd patterns and shades of his gray and red coat, the strange paleness of his eyes. 

"He's a Mod?" I questioned. I'd never seen a genetically modified dog before. They were usually only used enforcement.

Lex nodded and smiled fondly as he considered Jack. It was obvious he cared about the dog, in his own way. There was something reassuring about that.

"Yeah. He's about the most retarded doggy genius ever, though."

He turned back to me, running his hand along the stubble under his chin. "So if this is all such a big source of revenue, why not more girls? Why not make a zombie horde for purchase?"

I shrugged. "The only obstacle to that is time. The initial conditioning process takes between 8 to 10 months. As far as I know, there could be hundreds in the works. They just aren't ready yet."

I was still completely confused by his line of questioning, but as he seemed placated by my willingness to explain, I wasn't going to worry too much about the why of it.

"And your little boyfriend is in charge of turning them all?"

"What...?" I stuttered, genuinely confused.

"Mr. Brenton Ballew," he sneered.

"Umm...no. He used to be, but that all takes place in other buildings now."

"So what does he do there all day?"

Why the hell were we talking about Brent? "Hides out. Oversees the completed Ghosts 24/7, which is kind of like being a cattle herder."

"He never leaves?"

"Nope. There are a lot of angry parents that would love to kill him for what he has done to their daughters, and a lot of Vamps that are overinvested in his safety...I don't think he's allowed to leave, really. He left the Center once or twice while I was there, but it was under heavy escort."

"Are you saying he's held captive?"

"He..." I hesitated. "Yeah, basically." I shrugged. I didn't think he was there by choice. There might had been a time when he had gotten a thrill from it all, but he definitely wasn't enjoying his day job anymore.

Lex was frowning at me. "What was the nature of your relationship?" 

I stared at him stupidly, and he glared at me, impatient.

"Did he fuck you?"

"WHAT? No!" I exclaimed, surprising myself with my own outburst, shaking my head adamantly.

He raised a brow skeptically. "He never touched you?"

I was still shaking my head. "No...no. He wouldn't do that. It wasn't like that."

"Oh no? Then what was it like? Explain it to me." He was settling himself into the armchair now, lacing his fingers behind his head, his body the picture of relaxation even as he radiated with unexplained tension.

I tried to find the right words, unable to think of a straightforward way to explain the uneasy companionship that had developed between us. In which Brent might shyly invite me to play videogames with him because he was bored, yet still insist I go in the gas room with the drones at night for fear I might kill him in his sleep. A fear which wasn't unwarranted. 

"We...were each others only company, I guess. We were going to talk to each other or talk to no one, so we talked to each other."

He chuckled dryly. "How romantic."

I put a hand up. "No...not romantic. There was nothing romantic about it remotely." I said. "Definitively not."

He made a skeptical face and I spread my hands in a helpless gesture.

"Are you really jealous?" I asked, incredulous.

He looked surprised, then grinned mischievously and shook his head. "No, it's not that."

"Then...what is it?"

He leaned forward and bared his teeth at me.

"Are you questioning me now?"

I had never felt quite so much by a mouse being toyed with like a cat, and it was exhausting. I didn't seem to have a lot of stamina for this after all. Less than 24 hours in and I already kind of wanted him to just kill me. How the hell was I going to make it three months? I suddenly had the impression it was all an elaborate game, he wanted to play with me until I broke, and if that was the case I simply wasn't going to play anymore. The room blurred slightly, and I pinched my eyes shut and sunk down into the couch, and I heard him laughing again as he came towards me. 

"Giving up already, pieyla? You're being no fun at all."

I felt his hands grab my hips and he pulled me forward, and then the room began to tilt as blinding white pain shot behind my eyes. 

For an instant I felt nothing and thought nothing and then I simply heard the rapid cadence of my own breathing and the drip of my blood on my legs. Godammit. I was sitting on the couch doubled over, my face almost curled into my lap, and blood ran from my nose over my bared legs. I squeezed my eyes shut.

I heard him shuffling and cursing, and through the slowly widening slant of my eyes I could see him shoving paper towels in my direction, which I took, beginning to clean up awkwardly. I wondered how long I had been out. It couldn't have been long.

Lex was looking irritable. "I guess he did warn me that could happen if I stressed you out." He sighed and crossed his arms. "Clean yourself up in the kitchen. I'm taking a shower." 

For a while I just sat there motionless, trying to make sense of the roaring in my head. This was bad. I was already having episodes and it wasn't even from memories, it was from stress. I had to get it together. But after 15 hours away from the Center and I was becoming distressingly sober. Sober is not a state that really works for me. You just don't face the day to day of my life sober if there is any alternative. Brent had kept me in steady supply of weed, and Vodka, and other things.

Brent once told me that his conditioning tech worked to sabotage the natural and impressive coordination of the human brain. The reason that it didn't work so well on me? I had a broken brain. The tech wasn't designed to interrupt already disorganized transmissions. Thus, the fucked up circuitry of my head saved me from being completely brainwashed. But the process definitely affected me, it just ran like a glitchy, defective program- and when my head was working exceptionally well, the conditioned part of me wanted to kick in, and headaches split my skull apart. Drugs helped. Really, any kind of sedative seemed to lessen the attacks.

My genetic enhancements made my liver stronger and better able to filter out all the shit I routinely ingested. There was going to be no space between me and the world at all if I didn't do something quickly, and I'd already spotted the next candidate to provide that. Two bottles of frosty, expensive-looking chilled esterwine in the fridge. Esterwine is a Vamp-invented beverage, derived by plants on their home planet. Its one of the only drugs I know of that is effective on both Vamps and humans, though in most places it is only sold to vampires because of the strong effect it has on humans. Usually one has to be feeding on you before you get to enjoy the privilege. It doesn't make blood loss more dangerous, like regular alcohol tends to do, and is even said to have some protective effects. 

I heard the water shut off and realized I had to move quickly. Somehow I didn't think that in his current mood, the vampire would consent to me taking a beverage, so I wasn't going to ask. I stood with the fridge open, popped the cap, chugged the first, and without moving from my position popped the cap on the second and chugged it as well. When you go for something, go all out, right? I made it back to the couch before I started to feel the effects. The dog jumped up and lay half in my lap, licking my hand as I started to trip.. 

In reality it probably only took Lex a few minutes before he found me sitting there, but it felt like around three hours. Three very enjoyable, intense hours. It took me a minute to process what was happening as the distorted image of him stood over me and clanged bottles in front of my face. 

"HEY! Answer me, did you drink both of these?" 

He slowly came into full focus and I looked at the empty bottles in my hand, and at his angry face. It was all just very funny and I collapsed into giggles, unable to stop as he grasped behind my neck and pulled me to stand in front of him, jerking my hair back so I was looking up at his face. The esterwine had obliterated caution, and I didn't stop myself from looking directly into his glittering eyes. Pretty, I thought.

He pointed over towards the kitchen counter. "It says in your file that you're basically an addict, but I left two bottles of your pills right there. I know you saw them."

Oh yeah, I'd seen them. I snickered and poked him. 

"BOOOO," I said.

He released me and threw his hands up, and I immediately collapsed into a fit of giggles against his chest. 

"Seriously," he said, his voice still exasperated though amusement had started to creep its way in as well. "Why on earth would you do that? Did you really think this was a good idea, in your situation??"

I stood up straight and tried to compose a serious expression, emphasizing my words with finger points. 

"OK, first of all, Mr. Vampire Dude, there's no one else in my particular situation. Like, probably in the world. Nobody else in my boat-this is a one person canoe, bitch. I set the um..." -I swayed a bit- "parameters for what's appropriate in this situation, and I say the correct move is to get as shitfaced as possible. So that. Is what I did."

I nodded with finality but cut him off before he could say something in response.

"SECOND of all," -I layed a hand flat on his chest to better support myself- "Sometimes in...a hostage negotiation incident... you have to push the boundaries right away. That's how you make progress. You have to be like 'Oh, you wanna kill this guy? Oh, go ahead and do it. See what happens!!' And then you see if they back down."

His chest was vibrating with controlled laughter, and he grabbed my arms and pushed me back down on the couch, plopping down beside me. 

"First of all," he countered, "that doesn't make any sense, and second of all, that is terrible hostage negotiation technique. That is how people get shot. Third of all..." -he brushed his fingers over the top of my head- "I think I understand the sentiment. But it was idiotic to drink my esterwine. That shit is expensive."

I snorted. "It LOOKED expensive."

He shook his head, looking like he was trying not to laugh out loud. "You are not helping yourself. What were you thinking? I might have killed you."

I snorted and waved a hand. "Oh, you won't kill me. I made Brent show me my price tag once. I'm way too valuable to drain over this. And maybe you're mad, and maybe you're a psychopath, but whatever you decide to do to me, I'm gonna be fucked up for it, so I WIN."

His expression turned more serious. "What exactly do you think I'm going to do to you, little one?" he asked softly. 

I looked at my hands. This conversation was becoming not-fun anymore. After a second I heard him sigh again, and he strolled into the kitchen, pulling out some paper towels.

"You still have blood on you."

I was able to maintain my composure for about a minute, but as he flipped my hand over and dabbed the red stains off my palm with a damp towel I started laughing.

"Ooooh I'm a big bad vampire and I can't handle a little blood!"

His lips twitched, suppressing a smile. "Look, this is nose blood. That's just gross. Even I have standards."

He might have kept cleaning me, I don't know. For a while I was looking up, absorbed in the melting, colorful ceiling. Finally I said "I have to pee."

He grunted. "That makes sense, given that you just chugged 32 ounces of my drugs." Then he was pulling me to my feet and leading me to the bathroom, which was a good thing because the room looked about 3 miles long from where I was sitting. 




Ghosts Ch. 05



When I was finished I opened the door cautiously, feeling like absolutely anything could be on the other side of it. But it was just the vampire, waiting for me, leaning against the wall with his arms folded like some put-upon boyfriend. I giggled and he raised an eyebrow, holding out a hand to me. I took it but kept coming, walking right up to him and encircling him in a hug, burying my face in his chest. He made no move to return it, letting out an exasperated sound as his arms hung limply by his sides.

"Of course now you'd be touchy." He pried me off him and regarded me at arms length for a moment. Then he looked distracted.

"I don't even know how I'm going to get more of this stuff." he muttered, half to himself.

"What do you mean?" I asked too loudly, fidgeting in his grip.

"That esterwine," he said, voice trailing. "It was a special brew. I had plans for it."

"What was so special about it?"

"Well, its vampire strength. Definitely not meant for the likes of you. And it's one of the most effective truth serums in this solar system."

My brow furrowed and I just stared at him for a moment, then gasped with realization and stabbed my finger towards him. 

"That's why I want to be so honest with you right now!"

He nodded, his tone patronizing. "Yes, that would be why."

He raised my chin so that our gazes met, and his expression was a mix of irritation and resigned admiration. He shook his head. 

"The combined cost of those bottles is around 25 grand. I'm sort of glad you aren't going to remember any of this. I can't exactly have you thinking this is acceptable." 

He considered me for a moment and then shook me slightly, flicking the tip of my nose. "Do you hear me? Bad. Slave. This is not ok."

I tried to turn my features serious and failed, snickering again. But he was smiling, too.

"What kind of plans did you have involving truth serum?" I asked drowsily. "What are you, Batman?"

He was leading me towards the bedroom now, guiding me by the small of the back. "You hush. It was a good plan. Virtually foolproof."

He paused inside of the bedroom, and pulled my back against him, positioning us in front of the full-length mirror on the front of the closet. "You haven't even seen your new look." 

I looked at the girl in the glass. The outfit Katie had put me wasn't overly trashy. I was in a relatively-but not obscenely-short skirt and long, black socks, mary-jane shoes, with a clingy purple top that would have been revealing if I'd actually possessed cleavage to show off. My skin looked so pale and blank that it almost shimmered, and my eyes, defined by eyeliner and smoky eye shadow, stood out as exceptionally freakish. One gray and clouded and one a bright, glowy purple, they looked less normal than ever. My hair was returned almost entirely to its natural state. She had layered it over my shoulders, and it was slightly wavy, with a glossy shine that clearly defined the reds, blonds and blacks. My giddiness started to fade. I was a freak. I lowered my head.

"You are the cutest little witch I have ever seen," he murmured, and as I looked back up, mirror-Lex smiled at me. I watched our reflections as he slowly unzipped my skirt, easing it down my legs, revealing small, black panties with a bit of lace around the edges. He traced his fingers over my outer thighs. My mood began to spiral further and I started to shrink away from him.

"Shhh, take it easy. I just took them off because its going to be hard for you to sleep in them. Now kick off your shoes," he coaxed, his tone soothing. I did so promptly and obediently, terrified. I turned to him with wide eyes, shaking, then started to back up. 

"You're going to kill me." I said shakily, suddenly 100 percent sure that it was going to happen.

Confusion passed over his features, quickly followed by comprehension, and he shook his head forcefully.

"Oh, no. You are not allowed to have a bad trip on this stuff."

I took a step back. "You're going to kill me." I repeated.

He took a deep breath. "I'm not going to kill you. Come here." He gathered me close and maneuvered me onto the bed, climbing in next to me.

I didn't fight him, but I had started to shake. "You're going to take me back to the Center. You're going to have me conditioned. And then you're going to kill me." I felt like I might cry. Things were moving in the corners of my eyes and they were going to eat me.

"That wouldn't even make sense." He pulled me to his chest, stroking my back, and murmured a string of strange, soothing words in his own language. 

"Just relax. Take a deep breath. You're going to be tripping hard for at least a few more hours now. Think happy thoughts. Think about puppies, or something."

Slowly I began to calm. "I like puppies..." I muttered groggily. 

He chuckled. "That's good. Try and go to sleep."

**************************************************

He was still holding me when I woke. The esterwine hadn't worn off, but its influence was significantly lessened. I glanced around dazedly. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was, or how long I had been out. The windows had blackout blinds, and the only illumination in the room was from a tiny lamp that was sufficient for working illumination for a vampire, but could never serve as anything but a nightlight for a human. 

Lex was still and relaxed against me. I observed distantly that he had taken off his clothes at some point. His muscled chest rose and fell evenly. I scooted back slightly, and the dark pools of his eyes opened easily, fixing on me. I had the impression he hadn't been sleeping.

"How...long have I been out?" I asked, the words thick on my tongue. I wondered if I was dreaming.

"Quite a while. Are you coming down a little?" His voice was quiet, relaxed as he studied me.

"Yeah...have you been..." I tried to remember how to put words together. "Have you been watching over me this whole time?"

He nodded, his expression unreadable. "You kind of needed babysitting."

In my inebriated state I still wasn't able to recognize when it was inappropriate to share my feelings.

"It makes me so nervous when you're nice to me." I admitted, voice shaking a little. Everything seemed too surreal.

"Would you have me be cruel?" he asked mildly, tangling my hair in his fingers.

I stared at his shadowed features, and didn't have the self restraint to keep my fingers from tracing his well-defined lips. "It's not your nature to be kind."

He smiled then, and it was almost a sad smile, and he kissed my fingertips.

"You're right," he whispered. "It's not."

He wrapped his hand in my hair and pulled my head back tightly, baring my neck. I was able to suck in a breath before his fangs pierced the skin and pain shot through me in waves. I struggled, and again he appeared pleased by that, growling and wrapping himself around me. The pain gradually edged to a dull, insistent sting and he was suckling my neck again, the pull rhythmic, almost erotic. He began grinding against me slightly, but the drugs quelled my anxiety, and I felt myself growing wet, my nipples hardening through my shirt. I began to feel like I was floating, and I didn't protest as he released my neck to pull off my shirt, and bent to suckle my nipples. I can do this, I thought. 

But as he suckled I felt a fang press into the side of the raised bud and suddenly a memory intruded of Victor, savaging my chest, and I jerked away from him, shuddering. Lex let me go, and didn't attempt to grab me, just patting the bed next to him and taking my hand as I crawled back beside him warily. He pulled me back down next to him, tracing my side with his fingertips, being so gentile, patient, and I started to feel sick, and everything in me wanted to bolt. I wasn't going to be able to do it. What was going on anyway? Did he really need me to genuinely want it? I had a sudden, panicked feeling that the drugs would wear off before he had even gotten around to it, and then it wouldn't even have been worth it.

I pushed against his chest and sat up. "Hey, listen- I can't...be what you want me to be. But if you can get me out of the country in three months, you can do whatever you want to me. It doesn't matter if I like it or not. You have...you have my consent." My voice cracked. 

Lex actually laughed aloud, shaking his head. "Consent?" 

He layed a hand flat against my chest and pushed my back to the bed, and despite my words I felt panicked. His voice lowered to a purr.

"Oh no, sweetheart. You see, I'm not troubled by a human moral code. I don't need pretty words for what I'm doing to you."

Ah. Well, that cleared things up.

He slipped one hand between my thighs and edged my legs apart while the other hand encircled my wrists. To my relief, though, the drugs were still very much in my system, and I had another wave of consciousness that swept me somewhere else in a swift current, and I drifted. I felt as though I heard music.

"Pieyla." He was saying gently. "Look at me."

But I didn't want to look at him. I wanted to drift. 

"Pieyla." 

I ignored him, very much enjoying my trip as, somewhere distantly, his fingers worked under my underwear. I heard him make a frustrated sound. Then he gave a sigh which somehow turned into a snarl as he sunk his fangs into my neck and pain rocketed through me. I crashed back into my body with all the force of hitting the ground from a two story fall, and I jerked. He wasn't drinking this time, he was just using his venom on me. Sensation flooded me, agony and pleasure colliding, and I could no longer ignore the feelings that were growing between my legs. I was soaked, and my hips were starting to move of their own accord. I started to scoot away from him and he growled, squeezing my wrists. Then he pulled away from my neck, and whispered into my ear.

"You're going to lie there perfectly still while I bite you and touch you. You are not going to move a single muscle."

What the hell. I thought he liked struggling.

I swallowed. "Why?"

He grinned at me, all fang. "Because you want to please me."

He was a sadist. And he had dropped the nice-guy act. I guess I'd asked for that. He wasn't going to let me escape through drugs at all, he was going to keep me grounded with him, present for every moment- he wanted more of me than anyone could ever have a right to have.

My hands were freed now, but I was in charge of keeping myself immobile. His teeth found the same wound they were working on before and he was just barely feeding, pulling small amounts of blood from me as his venom seared pain through my body. I was struggling not to pull away from him, not to squirm or shake or twitch my hips. He was circling my clit, trailing my wetness around it, and the other hand was toying with my nipples. The more I tried to suppress it, the more aroused I became, and I began to whimper uncontrollably, my lowered inhibitions making it impossible to contain the sounds. I was reaching a peak. 

"No."" I heard him growl warningly. "You're not allowed to cum until my cock is inside you." I shuddered as he rose over me, nudging my legs further apart with his knees and positioning himself at the head of my entrance.

"You can move now, if you want, but don't get off until I tell you to." he said, his voice low with command, and then he began easing himself inside me.

His dick was huge. Not necessarily porn-star sized, but it was substantial and I'm a fairly...small person. I gasped and tensed as he began to ease into me, and the fever of my impending orgasm cooled a bit. He stretched me to the point of pain, and when he was fully sheathed, he'd reached the very end of me. He stilled for a moment, breathing hard. "You're so fucking tight. Jesus." He fingered my clit and my hips twitched, and he began to rock in and out of me as I adjusted to his size. 

"I want you to struggle now," he growled, and I had a split second to wonder how much of his venom it was safe to be exposed to in a day, and then all thoughts extinguished as he struck again, and my mind flooded red with hurt. I fought him, and my anxiety quickly turned to all-out panic as he held me down and pounded me, and my struggles only seemed to serve to drive him deeper. The fear and the pain and the overwhelmed my senses, it was so physical and feral and wrong, and I was going cum, I wasn't going to be able to help it. I tried to lurch away from him as my muscles began to spasm around him.

He stilled over me, pausing his movements. "What's the matter, Pieyla?" he smiled evilly. "You at the edge already?"

I whimpered, trying to hold it off, mortified at myself and terrified at what he might do. 

"Please," I choked. I felt like I was on some impossible peak, it was intensely uncomfortable, I was burning. 

He smiled again. "Okay." he said, drawing in a breath. "But keep fighting. And you have to look at me. Look at my eyes." He trapped my arms against my sides with one arm, leaning his weight on me, and circled his other hand under my neck, circling it with his fingers as I met his eyes, slightly luminescent, impossible to read. He didn't try to glamour me, but I was locked by the intensity of his gaze as he began thrusting into me even harder than before. The sensation grew even further, and I felt pulled too taught, and it was too much. 

"Oh, God." I whined, writhing. 

His expression became hungry. "Yes, do it." He grabbed my hair and pulled. "Do it now." And my body obeyed his command-I exploded around him instantly, crying out and squeezing my eyes shut as my muscles spasmed uncomfortably around the resistance of him. His low moan turned into a growl.

"Look. At. Me."

My eyes flew open. I was still half-fighting him, and he was still roughly riding me, the head of his cock smashing into my cervix, bruising. 

He looked ferocious. "Again," he demanded. "Cum again." He reached down and roughly pulled on my clit.

I had never come down, and I was already on the verge of another, bigger orgasm. When I shattered around him the second time, I cried out and tears flooded my vision as I struggled to maintain eye contact. I wasn't able to keep it up, my eyes snapping closed as I bowed underneath him, half sobbing, colors bursting behind my eyes and my mind blanking completely as I flew out of myself. 

If I'd experienced anything this intense during sex before, I certainly couldn't remember it.

I felt him cry out and shudder over top of me, but it seemed far away at this point, because I was already drifting in a post-orgasmic, half-drugged daze. Part of me was horrified by the intensity of my response, but right now I felt like I'd been shot up with heroin and animal tranquilizer and then half-drained of my life-force. I couldn't move anything. My body felt as thought it were made of bricks, and I lay motionless except for my gasping breaths as he rolled off me. Distantly I heard him chuckle as he pulled my dead weight back against him, spooning. He nuzzled me and spoke against my hair.

"You are fucking sexy, little witch. I am going to have so much fun with you."



Ghosts Ch. 06



"Drink this, Pieyla." 

My eyes fluttered open to the dim, bluish glow of the room illuminating Lex's alert features, but the image never quite came into focus. Pain exploded behind my eyes, and I squeezed them shut. As soon as the light was gone I began to slip almost immediately back into sleep. 

"Pieyla. Wake up, come on." He snapped his fingers and then I was looking at a fuzzy glass of water that was suddenly the most delicious looking thing I'd ever seen. I grabbed for it, my head not processing much of anything yet. He laughed as I began gulping it down, but it was slightly distorted over the ringing in my ears. 

"You've had a reasonable amount of blood loss," he said conversationally. "And you might still be tripping a little bit." He removed the drained glass from me with one hand and tipped my chin up with the other, studying my eyes. The vision of him vibrated oddly in front of me, but I couldn't bring myself to be overly bothered by the strangeness of the situation. 

"Yup, she's still trippin!" he said cheerfully to Jack, and then I realized Jack was beside me and threw my arms around the big dog's neck, running my fingers through soft fur.

"Hey." Lex was snapping his fingers in front of my face. "This drug is cyclic. At this point it's probably going to hit once every six hours or so for..." he frowned and shook his head, then shrugged. "fuck, I don't know," he muttered, "I've never seen a human ingest this much ifuale before."

His frown suddenly looked way too frowny and I snickered, pointing at him.

"Ifuale," I mimicked, giggling, and he shook his head, bopping me on the nose with his thumb.

"You're a monster," he said dryly, and it was such an absurd statement coming from him that I started to giggle harder. Then he slipped something out of his pocket and grabbed my leg, and before I could start to struggled he'd clicked a thin, circular device around my ankle. I could have mistaken it with a funky-looking anklet if I hadn't known better, It was bright pink. Blood Money was all about flashy accessories.

"Do I need to explain what this is?" His voice had a warning tone and I sobered enough to stop laughing. I shook my head.

"Good. Do not-" he took me by the shoulders and shook me slightly as he said it "-leave the apartment, and do not do anything stupid. I don't want to come back to a dead slave, you were expensive, and I don't want to come back to my home and find any of my valuable possessions consumed or destroyed. Is that too much to ask?"

His face was suddenly scary, and I shook my head enthusiastically, trying to will him to believe me.

"Good girl." He patted me on the head like a dog, and when Jack whined at him he took the mutt by the head and scratched behind his ears affectionately. "You watch her. I'm done babysitting."

He pointed at me as he shut the bedroom door on his way out. "Go back to sleep. You need it. I want you sober when I get back."

More sleep sounded like a really good idea at the moment, and I sank into the soft comforter, burying my face in red and gray fur as I drifted back out of consciousness.

*********************************

I woke up to a pounding head, and empty bed, and a bunch of disturbing memories that I couldn't quite sort out. I stumbled into the bathroom, squinting, and after taking care of my needs I started to fill the black, giant, Jacuzzi-sized tub. I didn't imagine Lex would care-who wants a dirty slave? And he'd already set out the girly bath stuff that he picked up from Blood Money. I grabbed a bright red bottle with way too much French in cursive on the label and smelled it. Mmmm, raspberry. I squeezed a generous amount under the tap before half climbing, half falling into the tub. Luxury was something I wasn't used to at the Center. Or...possibly ever. Who knows.

I sank up to my ears in bubbly raspberry goodness and tried to tell myself things weren't so bad at the moment. I wasn't hungover, which was nice. Esterwine doesn't really have a lot of the negative physical effects of alcohol. I felt like shit, but that was to be expected. I was familiar with the ringing in the ears, the feeling of my body as both airy and like a bag overstuffed with wet sand, the too-bright, disconnected look of everything that accompanied this much blood loss. It would go away within a few hours if I kept hydrated. I turned the water off with my toes and drifted for a bit, trying to sort out the events of the past day.

I probably shouldn't have drank the esterwine, I admitted to myself. I get impulsive sometimes. In my defense, my brain wasn't functioning at top level before Brent cut into it and fried it with an electromagnetic field. I have an exceptionally hard time with rational decision making when sobriety is imminent...I get too panicky, and everything seems so innocuous compared to having to face one moment of my existence with complete awareness of my surroundings. All of a sudden, I remembered Lex's mandate just as he was leaving, and I groaned. He wanted me sober when he got back. Why? Did he have plans for me?

I had a hazy memory of him in bed the night before...it was definitely the craziest orgasm I'd ever had (that I could remember). Granted, it was all so mixed up with his savagery and my fear and confusion that nothing about the experience had made him any less terrifying, but it definitely could have been a lot worse. I was sore as hell, and purple and gray bruises had blossomed on my skin under the grip of his fingers, but it could have been a lot worse. But- oh, God. I didn't think I could do it if I wasn't on anything. I held my breath and submerged my face in the heat of the water. I wasn't going to think about it right now.

When I was satisfyingly clean and raspberry scented I grabbed a big, fluffy black towel off the rack next to the tub. It covered as much as a summer dress once I cinched it around me, and as I stepped out of the water I tried not to consider the various reasons that a vampire might have both black towels and black sheets on his bed. I opened the bathroom door as if an angry mob might leap for me as soon as the barrier between us was breached, but I stepped out into a mercilessly silent and empty living room. There wasn't even a Jack in sight, though the window over the fire escape was open, a slight breeze rustling the curtains. I could hear cars driving by and doors slamming and the general murmur of human voices just a few stories underneath me. Something leapt in my chest. It was so close. I glanced at the device around my ankle. I would have to take a closer look at it in a few minutes, but I wasn't going anywhere naked.

The door to the second bedroom was conspicuously open, and I found the bags of clothes from Blood Money on the floor around the bed. The sliding door to the closet was also open. Was I expected to put the clothes away? Was this going to be my room? I looked around at the small room, which had a twin sized bed with a purple comforter and almost no decorative items or other possessions gracing the walls or surfaces. Maybe...but it was silly to get my hopes up about anything yet. I dug out jeans, tiny pink boy-shorts, a white bra and a cutesy but longish t-shirt, which was about the most conservative outfit I was able to put together. I ran my palms down my newly shielded sides appreciatively. I loved clothes. When you're kept naked as an animal for the better part of a year, with nothing between you and anyone who might want to put their hands upon your flesh, you start to appreciate them for the novelty they are. I had an absurd, comical impulse to keep layering more clothes on top of these ones, shirts on top of shirts and skirts over top of pants, but I pushed it aside. It might make me feel better but it wasn't going to accomplish anything. With a sense of purpose I sat down on the bed and rested my left leg over my right, studying the tiny pink tracker. 

Within a few seconds I knew it was useless. I wasn't overly familiar with Vamp tech, and sometimes it looks pretty different from human gadgets, but there were no on-board controls here. The only way to hack it would be via remote, and he had that. I gave a frustrated groan. My guess was that this was pricier than any of the trackers I'd ever seen before, on me or on other girls. Somewhere on the inside of it, nearest my skin, there should be a tiny hole where a needle would come out and stick me with enough tranquilizer to drop me for between 2-4 hours, should I surpass whatever boundary Lex had set it for, which in this case must mean going anywhere outside the apartment. Damned if I could see the hole, though, and I suspected running my fingers along the inside of it might trigger it. Why not, after all? Most Ghosts don't have the self-direction to explore anything, not even in such a simple way. I stood abruptly and rubbed at my eyes, abandoning my efforts.

"I guess I'm stuck here for a while."

Two things happened then: Jack padded into the room with a wallet in his mouth, and the next wave of esterwine drunkeness began to roll over my consciousness. I brushed past Jack and headed into the kitchen, poured a glass of water and gulped it down for another round of much-needed fluid replacement while I still had the presence of mind to do so. I might have actually preferred to have a little more of my wits about me at the moment, to evaluate my situation while the vampire was out, but I wasn't one to deny myself enjoyment of a good high, either. I grabbed the remote and lay down on the couch, flipping the channels until I found something that was visually interesting, because I wasn't going to be capable of following a plot very shortly now. Time and space stretched and twisted pleasantly as I devoured a documentary about coral reefs, and all the pretty things that lived in them.

Something plopped onto my stomach and my eyes snapped open. I hadn't realized they'd been closed. A soggy wallet was disgracing my new shirt and Jack's face was in my face, his doggy breath battering damply against my cheek. 

"Jesus." I looked at the dog, holding up the chewed-on piece of leather. He looked so earnest, and it was funny. I giggled, shaking the wallet at him.

"Why do you do this? Lex is obviously really fucking rich."

The dog made a frustrated whining sound and half-scratched, half-stamped his front paw on the carpet.

I groaned. "Maybe I wouldn't be confused if I wasn't high," I admitted to him. I opened the wallet and pulled out a thick wad of cash, then replaced it.

"That's a pretty good steal." I patted the dog on the head and tossed the wallet onto the coffee table. "Um. Good boy." 

That didn't appease him. He barked this time, and it almost sounded irritated.

"Dammit. Okay, okay, I think I get it." 

I rose on wobbly feet and traversed the too-long, windy-looking path to the kitchen. I opened the round dog bone container and tossed it in his general direction, but the drugs made me vastly overestimate my throw and it landed at my feet. Jack didn't mind, though. He grabbed the bone and, wagging his tail in what I thought was a satisfied manner, trotted over to his corner and dropped it there. Then to my surprise he was back by my side in an instant, taking my hand gingerly in his mouth and leading me back towards the couch. I guess when Lex told him to babysit me, he'd taken it to heart, and I was grateful. The fifteen foot span to the sofa looked like an impossible journey to undertake alone.

Once I was settled, the dog surprised me again by jumping and snuggling up next to me, half-laying on top of me as we both stretched on the length of the couch. But it only took a moment before I had my arms wrapped around him and was squeezing him close to me. In general, if given the choice between being touched and not being touched I would always go with not, but this was totally different. Cuddling up next to a big furry animal was so harmless and comforting, it was almost like wearing more clothes. I dropped off into a deep, surprisingly contented sleep.

**************************************************

When I woke, it was completely dark in the apartment except for the substantial glow of the television, and a gigantic mongrel was snoring on my chest. Now that I was in full possession of my senses, it was super uncomfortable, and I extricated myself from him gently. As I turned off the TV and started flipping on lamps Jack opened his eyes, yawned and stretched, then just lay there watching me, making no further moves to change his position. Lazy-ass dog. I smiled at him fondly and then surveyed my surroundings.

I felt like I had pretty thoroughly scoped out the place on the previous day. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom with a separate shower and tub, that was overall way too big and fancy in proportion to the rest of the apartment, and a mysterious locked room that didn't even have a doorknob, just something that looked like a fingerprint reader. That was weird, because I didn't even think vampires had fingerprints. 

I didn't quite know what to do with myself. I was mildly hungry, but I was kind of afraid to consume anything else in the apartment without permission. I made a face. My mouth tasted awful. I walked into the bathroom and opened the package of toothbrushes Lex had set on the counter, set on fixing that problem. After I was sufficiently minty and protected against cavities I ran the water hot and splashed it over my face a few times, then studied my reflection.

My hair was such a strange rainbow of otherwise natural hair colors. I knew about the physical genetic markers associated with the F-virus, I just didn't know why I ended up with so many of them. When the Vamps released their world-conquering supervirus around 50 years ago, it rewrote the DNA of the offspring of around 2 percent of the population, so that they produced more of the mysterious compound that Vamps apparently burn like calories. 20 percent of the population it killed outright. You want to conquer a species quickly? Take out a fifth of their people and turn a significant number of their children into foodstuffs. That helps the process along nicely. 

I grabbed the black hand-towel over the sink and wiped my face down with it, then replaced it. I tried to keep my breathing steady and my mind mostly blank. I was starting to feel upsettingly sober again- I could practically feel the absence of mind-altering chemicals in my system, and I didn't like it one bit. But freaking out over it wasn't going to help me. I turned to head towards the door, then froze.

Powerful vampires can somehow psychically bend light around themselves, and sometimes sound, as well. I think I'd seen a few demonstrations of that, but nothing anywhere close to what had just happened. He'd completely obscured his reflection in the mirror, and he'd entered the apartment without the slightest noise. The first indication I'd had that I was not alone was a very visible, angry-looking, and bloody Lex standing motionless in front of me. 

I wasn't even afraid. This was shock, this was pre-fear, and I knew that the real fear was going to hit me in one impossible crippling wave in any moment, and I tried to prepare myself for it as my brain processed the image in front of me in an odd, disconnected way. He was wearing a black shirt, which was soaking wet, and the substance would have been mysterious if his arms and face weren't covered in red, bloody smears. I knew there wasn't a chance that it was all his blood, but the jagged wound on his right arm and some cuts on his face made me think that maybe some of it was. 

I started to hear the ragged sound of my own breathing and it occurred to me to wonder if I had been holding my breath without realizing it, or if he had been doing some kind of sound-warping voodoo that had only recently stopped. He was studying me coldly, but the bright red stains obscured his features in a gruesome manner. This stuff was fresh.

"Take off your clothes." he growled.

Okay, now the real fear hit. The impulse to scream when frightened had long since been beaten out of me, so instead I backed up until I was pressed against the bathroom counter and then slid down it until I was sitting on the floor. I was beginning to hyperventilate. I didn't know what the fuck was happening or what I had expected from this vampire, but clearly I had been wrong.

"No." He snapped his fingers and pointed at me, then pulled off his shirt to reveal a chest covered in red. "You need to learn to obey me. Do it now."

Just as quickly as I had felt panicked, I started to feel numb. In just a few moments, I'd maxed out on fear. I couldn't feel more at this moment, and somehow because it was no longer rising within me, I could move again. I stood shakily. Part of me had already gone outside. I felt like I was watching myself as I slipped off my shirt and unhooked my bra. In truth I was looking at nothing. My eyes were completely out of focus and my face was pointed somewhere in the direction of Lex's chest, so I saw nothing but a red blur in front of me. I heard him unzipping his pants and I followed suit, not wanting to anger him further. I slipped my underwear off and stood awkwardly, still staring ahead at nothing. 

"Look at me."

I raised my head in the direction of his voice and stared pointedly, but kept my eyes out of focus, so I saw nothing but blurry shapes. I heard him growl and he cupped my jaw in his hand, then started to squeeze until I felt like he might crack the bone. I blinked and tried to pull back from him. Tears ran down my face as the terrifying image of him became clear again. He released my face and caught one on a slightly bloody fingertip, bringing the bit of moisture to his lips and sucking it off.

"I do love when women cry." he murmured, almost wistful. 

The problem with being clean is that you have to really experience, intellectually and emotionally, every single thing that happens to you. In vivid detail. I wanted the sheer horror of this to go away. I wanted it to be a nightmare. I wanted to be snuggling with Jack on the couch, or I wanted to be playing videogames with Brent, or I wanted to be getting shitfaced drunk in the observation room while I read about random things on the internet. But I wasn't. I was here, with this vampire that I'd very stupidly started to develop hopeful feelings about, and he was just going to continue being scary and traumatizing and I had to deal with every second of it. Sober.

He leaned over me, bracing one arm on the counter as the other opened a drawer to my side. I tried not to cringe too much at the closeness of him, unsure what would anger him further. He produced a small bottle of liquid from the drawer and stood up, pouring some of the oily substance in his hand. He put the bottle back in the drawer and closed it, then rubbed his palms together, warming it. It was some kind of lube, and little bits of blood from unknown persons were mixing with it, and as he began to move his hands between my legs I felt sick and tried to jerk away from him, even though there was no where for me to go.

"Please," I choked.

He smiled then, and it was a thoughtful, un-menacing smile, even as his hands found their purpose between my legs and he began to rub moisture there. I squeezed my eyes shut and squirmed in protest as two fingers worked inside of me, coating my inner walls with slipperiness. 

"Please," he mimicked, his voice mocking as he continued to work his fingers in and out of me. "Did Victor make you beg, Pieyla?" he asked, still smiling slightly, then leaned in and spoke into my ear. "Is that why you think it will save you now?"

Oh God, were vampires always this petrifying? I found myself grateful for not being able to remember 90 percent of my time with Victor. But even as I thought it, blurry, appalling memories surfaced in my mind. He had made me beg. And the worst part was, sometimes, if I pleaded and cried and debased myself enough, it had worked. Not often, but enough that I would plead instinctively and pitifully, and it was almost worse than if he'd never indulged my appeals. In the end it isn't the cruelty that tears you down, that makes you truly pathetic. It's the mercy.




Ghosts Ch. 06



"Look at me," he said again, and his face was hovering in front of mine now. My eyes snapped open and I forced myself to meet his glittering black eyes, because I knew he expected it.

"Never, ever"- his voice was harsher, and he pulled his fingers out of me and began to toy with my clit- "beg me. I'm not new to this game, and I make my toys last. I know exactly how much you can take before breaking. And trust me, little one"- he released me suddenly and grinned evilly down at me while shaking his head- "you're not even close."

Then I felt it hit, a strange, heated sensation that spread between my legs and then raced up my body, and I realized there must have been some kind of aphrodisiac in whatever he had just put on me. My nipples hardened, and my breasts began to feel heavy. There was a growing, uncomfortable pressure building between my legs. I felt my skin flush all over. He was smiling now, buck naked and fully erect, covered in blood. He was fucking scary as hell, and I had the impression that whatever weird, dark vibes he exuded were normally very reigned in- he shielded everyone from it somehow- because right now it was on full blast and I could feel some kind of horrible, thrumming energy all through me and it was awful: every part of me instinctively wanted to get away from it.

"Let's get in the shower."

My brain completely rejected the situation and I bolted from the room. Being aroused made it worse, somehow. It made me even more of a participant in this fucked-up, macabre bathroom sex act that I wanted absolutely no part of. I had believed I wasn't capable of being more afraid, and I'd been wrong. And in the mental overdrive of my panic something had just occurred to me- if I made it out of the apartment, I would be immediately tranquilized by the device on my ankle, and rendered unconscious for at least two hours. Possibly longer, depending on how the tranq drugs reacted with whatever topical vampire sex-cocktail that he'd just smeared between my legs. Of course, that wasn't going to help me in the long-run, but I was an addict to my core- I would choose oblivion now, and simply deal with the consequences later. 

I almost made it to the door before he stopped me. And when I say almost made it to the door, I mean I was almost within reaching distance of the doorknob before he seemed to materialize between me and my destination, and I crashed into him. He was solid as a wall, and before I could backtrack his arms wrapped around me and pinned my naked body against his naked, bloody one. He waited until my mindless struggling stopped and I went limp against him, then ran his fingers through my hair gently. But his sigh was irritable, like a parent pushed to the limit with a child.

"You just aren't being very good at following directions, Pieyla."

Before I could process what was happening he had taken my upper left arm in both of his hands and snapped the bone cleanly in two. He stepped back from me and I just stood there, numb, staring at my arm, which hung at an awkward angle and was already visibly beginning to swell. The sound had been like a big tree branch breaking, I thought. I'm not sure how long he just let me stand there, watching me as I grappled with his casual destruction of one of my limbs. Then the pain hit be like an afterthought, radiating outward in waves over my whole arm so that it would have been impossible for me to tell where the break was...if I hadn't been able to clearly see it. My knees started to feel weak. I was going to pass out. I finally glanced up at Lex, and saw him shake his head warningly.

"Let's get into the shower." He held out a hand for me to take, and dumbly, I took it, allowing myself to be led back into the bathroom. Things suddenly seemed a lot less complicated. A lot of the frantically working parts of my brain were now occupied by pain- huge, throbbing, and insistent. Familiar. Yes, it was simple now. I didn't want another broken arm. So I was simply going to do what he said. I would do whatever he told me to do, when he told me to do it, and that would just have to be enough, because it was all I was capable of giving. 

A low growling sound made me jerk, and it took me a second to realize it hadn't come from Lex. I glanced behind me to see Jack outside the closed window, teeth bared, hackles raised. I heard Lex give a little snarl in turn and looked up at him to see him scowling back at the window. He turned to me and smiled slightly then, almost sheepishly, as if he were letting me in on a secret or a joke.

"He disapproves." Lex whispered, then pulled me into the bathroom and shut the door behind us. He flipped me around and began backing me into the shower, so close that his erection bumped me in the stomach. There was a bit blood on his dick from pumping it with his already bloody hand. But my head was consumed with pain- I was taking it all in but not really realizing anything, and the only thing I could think of was that I needed to do everything he said, and that I needed to please him. I let him push me into the shower and close the shower door behind us. He just had to tap me on the nose before my eyes shot up to meet his directly, and he smiled. He had a thing about eye contact, this one.

He had one of those new, massive overhanging showerheads that turned a shower into something more like a heavy, hot rainfall, which was something that you were actually able to experience in nature on the Vamp's home planet. Some dim part of me was flooded with relief when he turned the knob and hot water flooded over us, and all around us, washing the blood from his skin. I felt dizzy and I leaned against the shower wall, simply watching as he soaped himself all over, quickly and efficiently, then just let the water stream over him. He was still staring at me.

"Come here."

I was practically plastered against him in an instant, and he smiled. 

"Good girl," he said. His tone was genuinely pleased, and I felt slightly relieved, even as my arm throbbed and hung brokenly at my side. He began washing me gingerly, avoiding my bad arm, and I was horrified to find that even as I was light headed and overwhelmed with pain from a fucking broken bone- I was still extremely aroused. Whatever he'd used on me was strong. Before long, I'd begun to writhe under his hands as he soaped my body in slow, seductive strokes. He chuckled, then hoisted me against the shower wall, one hand under my ass, supporting me, one hand around my neck, pinning me to the wall, choking me-not enough to cut off much air or blood supply but enough to be scary. Then he poised his dick at my entrance.

"Don't cum without permission," he said firmly, pinning me with his gaze. He raised an eyebrow and added- "and you do not have permission. Not this time." 

With that, he plunged in to me, and it hurt, but the pain was buried under the roar of the more dominant pain of my arm. He began pounding in to me hard, hitting my cervix again, and I was starting to whimper. The aphrodisiac had heightened all the sensation there- I was swollen and dripping- I felt like he was pounding into a huge bundle of nerves, almost like every part he was touching was as sensitive as my clit. Oh God, I thought, I was going to cum. I looked at him, panicked.

"Please," I whispered, but he just tightened his grip around my neck and glared down at me.

"What. Did I tell you. About begging me." He snarled, and pounded into me even harder. I whimpered louder and struggled against him, and I could tell from the look on his face that it pleased him.

"Keep doing that," he snarled, and I complied. Struggling jarred my arm and the increased pain made me just able to hold off the impending orgasm. But he let go of my neck then, and, using his forearm along my stomach to keep me pressed the wall, he positioned his hand downward and moved his fingers over my clit, teasing it lightly. My hips jerked with the sensation, and I was right on the edge. I looked at him desperately, biting my lip, stifling any verbal pleas. 

"Fuck." He growled and slammed into me one last time, shuddering, and the feel of his hot seed flooding me was almost enough to push me over the edge. Almost.

He pulled out of me, backing away and releasing his hands, and unceremoniously dropped me to the shower floor. I had a peaceful, empty-headed moment as I lay on my back, staring at the shower wall, and cradled my jostled, throbbing arm with the other. But then he was crouching over me, his face filling my vision, and his fingers were working on my clit, bringing all the feeling down there flooding back to me.

He was hovering over me, his face unreadable. One hand brushed lightly over my good arm as the other pinched and teased at the throbbing bud between my legs, making me squirm and slide on the smooth, wet floor. Occasionally hot water got into my eyes and blurred the vision of him. I was breathing hard. I was so close to the edge. I couldn't hold it off any longer.

"What do you think, Pieyla? Should I let you cum?" his tone was conversational.

I took in his impassive expression and wondered what he could possibly want from me. 

"Whatever you want." My voice was hoarse.

He smiled then, and the smile was a weird combination of evil and proud.

"Now you're catching on." He pushed my good arm aside and twisted my nipple, then slipped a few fingers inside me and began to work them in and out as he massaged my clit with his thumb. 

"Alright, go on then." he whispered. I was spasming around his fingers before he'd even finished speaking, my hips jerking wildly. It was too much. Between the pain and the drugged lubricant, I felt like all my nerves were stretched so rubber band tight that when they finally released, I would black out. And despite the eagerness for the blissful ignorance that unconsciousness provided that I experienced moments ago, I was beginning to think that might be deadly. I started to squirm away from him. 

"Hey, look at me." I locked eyes with his in the midst of my turmoil, and the expression on his face was almost kind. He removed his hand from my breast and laced the fingers of my good hand through his, squeezing. He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. "It's okay. Let go, I've got you."

Perversely, this reassured me, and just as quickly I was cumming. My body convulsed in his hands, shuddering, nerve endings reaching a fever pitch of vibration. I felt like I was being pulled out of myself. Blackness filled my vision, and I was lost.



Ghosts Ch. 07



Author's notes- I genuinely apologize to anyone who was traumatized by the last chapter. I sort of have a twisted mind, and tend to write things that are pretty dark...I tried to use more foreboding tags this time! But just as a general warning- this is not a lighthearted story or a romance. It's basically science fiction/horror with a lot of deviant, sometimes violent, often disturbing sex. It's fucked up. But if you have a twisted imagination like mine and appreciate that sort of thing- read on! And thanks for the feedback. I know this is a relatively short chapter- the next chapter will be much longer, but it might be a few weeks before I submit it.

*********************************************** 

I couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds. When I opened my eyes again, the shower had been turned off and I was lying prone on the floor, dripping. But the water on me was still warm and steam billowed out of the open shower door in the bathroom. The light seemed way too bright. I did a quick mental assessment of my physical state, wiggling my fingers and toes slightly. One very broken arm. One dizzy, achy head that was just starting to pound. A few bruises here and there. Everything else appeared intact. I pushed myself up and stood on shaky legs. I felt vaguely unattached to my own body.

Some of the steam cleared and I saw him standing in front of the sink, drying his very lean, naked body. He looked so relaxed, so casual about everything. He was no longer giving off his crazy evil vibes. He turned and looked at me, and I just blinked at him, unsure what to do. Afraid of doing the wrong thing. He studied me for a moment. I was reminded of Brent in his lab, meticulously filling a latex glove with water and checking for leaks. That was how the vampire was looking at me right now. When he didn't find what he was looking for, he frowned and thrust the towel towards me. I took it and began to dry off the best I could with one hand, avoiding my bad arm.

When he stepped towards me I flinched, but otherwise managed to stay still as he approached. I didn't think I could remain upright if I moved around too much anyway. 

"Easy. I'm just going to help you out."

He took the towel from me and began wiping me down gingerly, being careful with my broken arm. I didn't know the cause for this sudden gentleness, and it made me nervous. I felt like there was no way to guess what he might do next. Then he was wrapping me in a big white robe, leaving the broken arm on the inside, because it was way too swollen now to put through a sleeve. I allowed myself to be led into the living room and positioned on the couch, but I just stared at the ground, slouched there. Other than the persistent throb of my cradled arm, my mind was blissfully blank. I heard him moving around, getting dressed, opening doors and shuffling things, but I kept my eyes fixed on the carpet. I wasn't planning on doing anything unless he specifically instructed me to.

I heard the window being unlocked and opened behind me, and after a few seconds I heard Lex's sigh.

"Are you going to come in or are you just going to stay out there judging me?"

A moment of silence passed. I heard another exasperated sigh from Lex, then the window shutting. I didn't even completely look up when I felt the couch dip beside me as he sat down, hauling some kind of bag with him. Only when he started removing what looked like medical supplies and setting them on the coffee table did I turn my full attention to what he was doing. 

He had the makeshifts of a splint, and a syringe full of orange liquid, which sat ominously on the table in front of us. I tried not to think about why he might be keeping a full medical kit in the locked room. But as he picked up the syringe and flicked it a few times, getting the bubbles out, my anxiety got the better of me.

"What is that?" I asked, voice shaky.

He smiled at me gently. "It's just something to help the swelling go down. I can't set it until then."

Oh, he was going to patch me up himself. I had a moment of more extreme dismay, questioning his medical expertise, but then I pushed it aside. At least something was being done about it. At least he wasn't breaking the other one yet.

He carefully removed the robe from my left side, and I sat motionless as he jabbed the needle in my arm and injected the liquid. It must have hurt, but my body was working overdrive making its own natural pain killers, and it wasn't even registering. I wasn't terribly surprised when the swelling started to recede visibly as he watched it, until within a few minutes most of it had disappeared, just leaving a gruesome, awkwardly angled excuse for an arm. Vampires were as brilliant with their pharmaceuticals as they were stingy with them. The scope of their drugs was so beyond that of anything humans had attempted. He picked up the makings of a splint and put them in his lap. I watched with a growing sense of alarm as he picked out a vile and filled another syringe with a milky white fluid. Great, I had gone right from the hands of a mad scientist to the care of a vampire with a mad doctor fetish. I wasn't positive which was worse, but I was pretty sure it was the latter. He turned his head halfway back towards me and met my eyes briefly. 

"I'm going to set the bone. It will be quick, but you'll probably pass out again."

His tone was matter of fact. Before I could react, he grabbed my broken arm with both hands and wrenched it. For a moment I didn't even feel pain, just numbness, and a slight tingling sensation. Then it hit, in a great red wave and I lost consciousness.

**************************************************

I woke to a rich, heady smell of meat, onions and some kind of spice. I blinked and sat up slowly, pushing a fuzzy blanket off me as I did so. He had covered me up? Everything seemed bright and dark at the same time, and I felt weightless. There was no pain. I glanced at my arm and jerked. It was completely healed, if not well healed. There was a slight but visible ridge in the bone. I felt slightly sick, and I wondered what the hell he had given me to knit bone that quickly. Granted, it was better than having a broken arm, and I flexed my fingers experimentally. I experienced no pain at all, and I was a bit dizzy, but otherwise I was unfortunately alert. I closed my eyes again as a wave of nausea passed through me, but tried to focus on the sounds of the television, before realizing that was pointless. It was a vampire channel, and the Vamps on the show were speaking their indecipherable alien language. I opened my eyes to see Lex lounging in his armchair, and again I was reminded of lions in nature documentaries, content, full and resting after a sizeable kill. And indeed, in light of previous events, that probably wasn't far from the truth. 

The way his eyes slid toward me and his head turned as if it was on a hinge was so creepily inhuman that I shuddered. Then he was looking at me with that strange expression again, like he was waiting for something, like he was checking for leaks.

"You've been out for a while. You needed the sleep, though, to heal. I gave you something for the pain. You have extraordinary tolerance, but that was a bit much, even for you."

He gestured towards my arm, and was silent for a beat, watching my reaction. I wondered if he expected me to thank him, or compliment his repair job. I said nothing, just fought another wave of dizziness. Then in a blur he was sitting on the couch beside me and I jumped, then slumped back into the cushion. I really wished he'd stop doing that. Why couldn't he just walk like a normal person? It was only a few feet away. Gently, he pulled me into his side and stroked my hair in a soothing manner. I tried not to cringe too much. I really didn't want him to touch me now. He kept stroking me until I relaxed slightly, and then he started to speak.

"Let's just get a few things straight, OK? I don't expect this to be a regular thing." He patted my shoulder slightly. "Last night, when you drank one of the most valuable items in my house"- I turned and looked at him, stunned- "you did it because you're impulsive and because you're an addict, but you also did it because you wanted to know what the stakes were." 

He sighed then, staring at the far wall, rubbing my side now, as if I were a dog he was petting distractedly. His tone had been gentle, even it didn't quite match his words. He turned and looked at me,thoughtfully, and through the haze of painkillers and shock, fear started to rise full force. One of the most valuable items in his house? How could it have possibly been that expensive? I tried to remember more about what happened the previous night, but encountered nothing between drinking the wine and waking up next to him. 

"Now you know the stakes." he said softly. He began running a finger over the side of my face. "You do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it, or you will be punished. You intentionally provoke me with your actions, and you will be punished." 

He encircled his hand around my arm at the site of the break and squeezed, and I cringed, even though I felt not the slightest unpleasant sensation.

"This is a punishment." 

I looked at him, and met his eyes with a growing sense of horror. It was amazing how quickly he'd trained me to make frequent eye contact, even though I was terrified of being glamoured. His expression contained understanding, but no sympathy. 

"I don't have time for discipline problems. I expect complete obedience. That said"- he stroked along the side of my neck, gently but creepily- "never be afraid to speak your mind to me. There's a reason I didn't want a Ghost. You can speak freely, unless I specifically order you not to. In fact, I encourage it. I know almost no-one here, and I'm going to want some conversation from time to time."

I narrowed my eyes at him, confusion suddenly overtaking fear. I wasn't sure what he was saying, exactly, but it didn't seem to fit with my overall interpretation of his personality. 

"I can say whatever I want to you?"

He nodded and looked at me steadily. "When I have your respect, sweetheart, it's going to be genuine. I don't want you to fake it. I want to see it happen."

Well, that allowance for free expression hadn't exactly been reassuring. Yet, what he was saying overall was actually encouraging in my current predicament. I desperately wanted him to be, if not a compassionate creature, at least a logical one. Maybe he was being serious. If I showed complete obedience, maybe he would show me lenience. Maybe he wouldn't be so brutal. Maybe it didn't have to be so bad.

No, who was I kidding? This was not okay. The degree of his power over me was sickening. He could break me apart and put me back together slightly wrong as often as he wanted, for a very long time. The horror I felt intensified as I looked at him, at his unearthly, unreadable eyes, and I plunged rapidly and unexpectedly into despair. Tears began to well up. Lex's expression changed-he looked like he was finally seeing what he had been watching for, and for some reason that was enough to push me over the edge into sudden, spontaneous bawling. He abruptly pulled me to his chest and rubbed my back in a comforting manner. I didn't have the energy to cringe anymore. I was lost. Time was passing, but I had no sense of it. 

I really wished that he would stop holding me, soothing me. I already kind of hated him, but there were panicked parts of me that just wanted to cling to him, to anything, in the wake of the emotions he had just unleashed. I felt like something had cracked inside me. It was too much. And I was clinging to him, barely aware of it, burying my face in his chest, getting snot and tears all over his shirt, sobbing wretchedly, like some pitiful creature, as he stroked me and murmured to me in his strange, ancient-sounding language.

After a while, I managed to get it together a little and forced myself to let go of him. He released me easily, and I scooted back on the couch until I sat awkwardly in the crook of the armrest. I felt overwhelmed, and exhausted. I studied him with wary eyes, but he was momentarily unthreatening. A whining, insistent noise came from behind us and he smiled, standing up and facing the window. The dog was scratching at the glass, and I thought he looked kind of irritated.

"It's really funny how much trouble he has opening it from that side." He raised his hands and waggled his thumbs mockingly at the animal. "It's because he doesn't have these."

I was getting the impression that he talked to Jack quite a bit. It seemed a little weird, and I wondered how much the dog actually understood. The the soft whining that had been taking place turned into a vicious growling and Lex chuckled heartily. "He's so jealous of thumbs."

What the fuck. 

Lex walked over to the window and opened it, and the big dog bounded over to me, jumped up on the couch and began licking my face. I grabbed him and pulled him against my chest like a shield. For a few moments, I felt like I had grabbed on to something solid. At least I had an ally in Jack. 

Lex spoke to the dog instead of me. "All right, that's enough, she needs to eat something."

The dog glared at him. The animal's face was shockingly expressive, and I wondered if that was a feature provided by genetic manipulation, or if unnaturally smart dogs just used their faces differently. 

Lex raised an eyebrow and glared at him. "Don't fuck with me, I've had a taxing evening." 

The dog jumped down and trotted to his corner, but growled in protest. I briefly mourned the loss of the furry creature as a barrier between me and the scary vampire. Lex held out a hand to me, and I took it grudgingly. He supported me (I was still dizzy) as he led me to a seat in the kitchen.

"Now don't be expecting that I'll cook for you all the time." He pointed a finger at me. "Don't read anything into this." He opened a pot on the stove and stirred it, then ladled some in a bowl and sat it in front of me. He looked at me expectantly and I numbly spooned some in my mouth. It tasted amazing, and I suddenly realized I was ravenous. I ate more enthusiastically, savoring it. The vampire was an amazing cook. This was so fucking weird.

"I have some things for you."

I put my spoon down, but Lex shook his head. 

"Keep eating."

I kept eating. The vampire grabbed a duffel bag from the floor beside him. I hadn't noticed the bag there before. Had it been there before? He unzipped it, and pulled out a small, circular device. It was electronic, and red, and not unlike the tracker around my ankle-except it was wider and had a barcode on it, along with symbols in Vamp language. He clicked it around my wrist, and I looked at it nervously. 

"Do you know what that is?"

I shook my head. He pointed at the spoon. 

"Keep eating." 

I kept eating. Lex was pulling out a tablet and turning it on, typing in something on the keyboard. Then he showed it to me. I saw my picture, along with height and weight and general specifications, and a name that wasn't mine. There was lot of stuff that was in Vamp language that I couldn't possibly decipher. But I knew what this was.

"I'm in the International Feeder Database?" The IFD was a vast record of almost ever Feeder in existence, and used by almost all countries...except for Australia, where being a Feeder stripped you of every human right. 

Lex nodded. "I paid in full for you- you're entirely my property, which means I can actually change your citizenship. I went ahead and put you in the database. I mean"-he shrugged-"you're not an American until you officially enter the country with me, but after that, everything is set. This"- he pointed to the device on my wrist- "is kind of like a collar. It identifies you as, effectively, a foreigner with full immunity to this country's Feeder regulations. You can safely walk the streets. And you should." He smiled slightly. "It sounds like you've been cooped up for a while." 

I had stopped eating again, and just looked at him in shock. Part of me didn't really want to believe it. The creature that was giving me real hope now, real freedom, was the same creature that had snapped my arm in two only hours earlier. I didn't know quite how to reconcile that. Maybe it wasn't worth trying.

"Aww." He patted my head as he took in my expression. "It's all a bit much, isn't it? Keep eating."

I kept eating. 

He pulled out a cell phone. "This is yours. Keep it on you at all times. I might text you commands from time to time, like"- he paused and considered for a moment. "'Pick up milk', or 'I want you naked, on the floor on all fours when I get home', and I will fully expect you to comply."

Oh, God. 

I had finished the soup, and I actually felt a lot better. The vampire was studying me.

"That said, I'll be out a lot, and I don't really give a shit what you do when I'm out. Entertain yourself." He pulled something else out of the duffel bag and set it on the table. It was a giant wad of cash. My eyes widened.

"This is an advance on the amount that you're entitled to in the Feeder contract, which I will need you to sign"- he picked up the tablet and tapped on a few things, then scrolled, then set it in front of me again. He produced an electronic pen and handed it to me. There was a blank line with a signature indicator beside it.

"Uhh.." I cleared my throat, nervous. "Can I read it first?"

The vampire smiled evilly at me and shook his head. "You can read it after you sign it."

I sighed. Alright, then. I signed my name, then looked at him questioningly. He nodded his head. 

"Go ahead."

The contract wasn't terribly long- about six pages, and the last page was in Vamp language, not English. But the English part was straightforward.

I swallowed. "This gives you complete ownership over me." I had a sinking feeling. I had just signed away my independence before I even got to experience it. 

He leaned over and flipped to the third page of the contract, pointing something out. "For six weeks. After that, you can choose to renew the contract, or not."

Well, that didn't sound so bad. But I didn't trust him. He had a slight smirk, and something occurred to me.

"You're completely confident that I will renew it."

He looked surprised, then pleased. He stroked down my shoulder. 

"You're kind of smart when you're not completely fucked up on drugs." he said conversationally. "That's good, I like a smart slave. They're more fun."

I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Part of me wanted to humanize him, but most of me was finding that impossible.

"I won't sign away my freedom...not willingly. Not if there's another option." I said it firmly. I needed to know if he actually considered it a possibility. He smiled.

"I promise you, if you choose not to renew your contract, I will let you go."

Well, maybe that was the case. I guess I would have to worry about that when the time came. At least it looked like I had a ticket out of the country, and that was huge. I looked at my hands.

"Thank you." I muttered weakly. 

He smiled smugly. "You're welcome."

I studied him uneasily, and I knew by the way he looked at me- like a game, like a toy, that he thought without a doubt that he could break me, that he could turn me into a loyal servant who would chose total subservience to him over a normal, independent life. He's wrong, I thought. Freedom was everything to me. And there was no way in hell I was going to give it up for this violent sociopath. Plus, I could never survive him that long. A year? Fuck that. For now, I would deal with him, because I had to. I was no stranger to violence, or cruelty. I could survive it again as long as I knew freedom lay at the end of the road.




Ghosts Ch. 07



Lex cocked his head, and I had that eerie feeling again that he could pick up on some of my thoughts.

"You're such a surprise, you know that? It takes a lot to surprise me, at my age." He tipped my chin up and studied be, his expression thoughtful, then he smiled. "You were worth every penny."

I didn't really know how to respond to that, so I didn't. Lex pointed at the tablet. 

"That's yours."

Then he opened the fridge, which now displayed an impressive amount of esterwine. The kind you saw advertised on commercials, not whatever fancy kind he'd had in there before. 

"And so is this. It's human- or Feeder strength"-he closed the fridge door- "so its not going to get you nearly as fucked up as the vampire-strength stuff you consumed earlier, but it's decent enough." He looked pointedly at my wrist. "That identifier will allow you to buy it yourself." He smiled at me a little wickedly. "I'm not going to make you face me sober. I don't think you'll last long if I do."

Why did he have to qualify everything with menace? Still, thank God in heaven that he was providing me with drugs.

"Can I have one now?" I blurted.

He looked amused, shook his head at me and chuckled. "Do you really think that's a good idea?"

I hesitated, and assessed him. "Are you telling me that I can't have one?"

He laughed again, and cocked his head, then shrugged and walked over to the armchair, resuming his boneless lounging. He changed the channel to something else, some other Vamp station, and yawned impressively. 

"Knock yourself out. As long as it doesn't affect your ability to load the dishwasher."



Ghosts Ch. 08



I was not, in fact, certain that the esterwine wouldn't affect my ability to load the dishwasher, and if it was anything like the vampire-strength brand, it definitely would. So I cleaned up the kitchen, reminded again of how very naked I was under my loose robe when a droplet of water flicked onto my neck and began to slide unimpeded down my chest. I cinched the robe tighter. I was feeling much better after eating the soup...I'd probably had pretty low blood sugar from not eating all day. I popped open the fridge door and stared at all the bright green bottles. I picked one up and savored the cool surface of the glass against my palm.

Lex- who had been ignoring me up until this moment- swiveled his head towards me with eerie smoothness, his eyes sliding up and down over me in a way it seemed I could physically feel. I shivered. Was he always going to be this creepy?

"I don't really know how that will interact with what I just gave you, or if the esterwine from last night is still in your system. It could be." He raised one shoulder in a graceful shrug and turned back towards the television. His tone was casual. He wasn't telling me not to do it.

After a moment I gave my own shrug and twisted off the cap, sitting myself awkwardly at the kitchen table as I sipped it. I really wanted to put on some real clothes, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to...ask permission? No, I didn't want to ask permission. I didn't want to set that precedent. But I also didn't really even want to put the subject of clothes-and my wearing them or not wearing them- on the table. I felt like that could have unfortunate consequences. 

I took another sip of the esterwine. I couldn't even remember what the others had tasted like, but this stuff was crisp and slightly sweet. There were kints of honey and caramel and...spearmint? It was a weird combination of flavors, but they all coalesced into something that was just about perfect. There was something vaguely familiar about it. 

After I finished, I tossed the bottle. I'd gone slow and was only just barely feeling it, so it must have been more suited towards my human-ish constitution. Still, I hope it picked up a little more than this. 

Now that I was finished drinking I no longer had an excuse to fidget at the kitchen table, and I had lost a bit of my apprehension for the moment. It appeared that the vampire was going to ignore me. From his half-lidded, motionless fixation on the television program he could have been enraptured in the programming, or meditating. But he definitely wasn't paying attention to me. 

I tried to cross the living room as inconspicuously as possible. I stopped by the bathroom first, because that seemed like an innocent enough thing to do, and the second bedroom- where the clothing was- was only a few steps away. I had a moment of nausea and terror come over me when I glanced into the shower- the door was still hanging open, and moisture clung to the walls. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself not to think about it. Another breakdown was useless to me right now. When I was done with the necessities, I opened the bathroom door and took a casual step towards the second bedroom. My plan was to simply stroll into the room, shut the door, and get dressed as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do. It was a perfectly normal thing to do. 

I made it two steps before the vampire was breathing down my neck.

"Where are you going?"

I jumped half a foot in the air and flipped around, flattening myself against the wall. 

"Please stop doing that." My voice squeaked.

He peered down at me and smiled. "Stop doing what? And answer me."

"Materializing random places!" I almost yelled it, exasperation momentarily overtaking fear. "Can't you just walk? It's so freaky."

He gave a slight twitch of a smile and then just looked at me expectantly. I swallowed. 

"And, uhh...I thought I'd get dressed."

"Ahh," he purred, moving even closer to me. "And why would I let you do a silly thing like put clothes on?" 

I lowered my gaze until it settled somewhere on his chest, and went very still, almost relaxed, as I leaned against the wall. I was taking a moment to appreciate the wave of esterwine distortion that was flooding my senses so that everything seemed slower, quieter and less overwhelming. Drinking had been a good call. 

The vampire braced his hands upon the wall beside me as he sniffed my neck. Then he began to trace the veins with his tongue as he loosened the ties of the robe. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed myself harder into the wall, wishing a trapdoor would magically open and pull me back inside it. Nope, I still wasn't drunk enough for this. 

Still leaning, he kept his face near my face as his hands roamed casually over my body, and I felt his breath upon my cheek. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, though. I tried to keep my breathing steady. 

"Now," he said softly, his voice all honey and menace. "We learned a valuable lesson earlier about obedience, didn't we?"

I nodded very slightly, eyes still closed. I hadn't realized how close I'd remained to tears until I felt the lump forming in my throat. He wasn't doing much except running his hands up and down my sides and occasionally stopping to explore my breasts. I'm not sure how long we stayed like that: me, flattened against the wall, eyes squeezed shut, him lightly exploring me with his fingertips in a gruesome imitation of a gentle lover. After a while he gave my nipples a final tweak and released me, stepping back. 

"Go into the bathroom and get the lube that I used on you earlier. Then come meet me in my bedroom." 

He said it as casually as if he'd just ask me if I could grab him a can of beer out the fridge, but this was all sexual intimidation and control. A distant part of myself, unaffected by fear, added "way hornier" to the expanding list of how second-gen vamps vastly differentiated from first gen. Most of me crumpled inwardly. 

Lex left me, shutting his bedroom door behind him. I opened my eyes slowly, glancing around with tear blurred vision, and immediately cinched the robe tight around myself. It made me feel slightly more put together. I spotted Jack curled in the corner with his back to me. His ears were alert-he was awake, but he wasn't getting involved. 

I glanced longingly through the door of the second bedroom- just a step away, and the bags of clothes on the floor that I had never reached. I'd been so close. I fruitlessly wondered if I would have reached them after all, if the vampire had been just slightly more engaged in whatever he'd been watching on TV. I couldn't tell the extent that he was playing with me- it was too effortless for him- but I was beginning to think that he might just do whatever interested him most at the moment. 

Retrieving the lube from the bathroom was difficult. I made an effort not to look at the shower, but I was having an increasingly hard time not replaying the night's events over and over again in my mind. By the time I reached the bedroom, bottle clenched tightly in hand, I was shaking all over. I opened the door and pushed it open, greeted by darkness and the dim blue light of the lamp. I made no move to go inside, even though I was sure he expected it. I'd frozen up. I was shaking too hard. My gaze seemed to be stuck somewhere around my feet. 

Strong arms grasped me and I jerked, surprised by the sudden embrace. I felt my fingers being untangled and saw the bottle of lube placed on the nightstand, and then his hand grasped mine in what was intended to be comforting contact He tipped my chin up until I was meeting his eyes again. They were black as night, but there were small crinkles underneath them. Smile lines. 

"Good girl." He whispered.

Perversely, some part of me relaxed at his statement. His demeanor was gentle. I allowed him to lead me into the bed and pull the covers over us. My body remained stiff as rolled onto his back and nestled me into his side, but he wasn't doing much other than rubbing my back. After a while, the raw fear began to ebb and I felt nothing other than a persistent, gnawing anxiety that was probably going to characterize my life here. I opened my eyes and glanced around. He had his other arm thrown behind his head in a relaxed posture, looking up at the ceiling. His breathing was steady, and noticeable as my cheek rested against his chest. He shifted slightly and patted my back, apparently noticing that I wasn't having a panic attack anymore. While I was retrieving the lube he must have removed his shirt and pants, because my face rested on warm, bare skin and my legs entangled with bare, slightly hairy man legs.

"Feeling a little better, Pieyla?"

I gave a little nod, but flinched when he moved his hand to brush some hair out of my face. 

"Just relax," he soothed.

I took a breath and spoke impulsively. "I'm not going to be able to do that without another drink."

Hey, he had said he wasn't going to make me face him sober. I was a lot more sober than I would like to be. 

Lex completely froze for a moment, then laughed almost delightedly. In the dim light of the room, his smile and affectations seemed so human and unthreatening that he could have easily passed if it had not been for the frightening black wells of his eyes. But I felt somewhat relieved, because he wasn't responding in anger. He kissed me on the forehead and then grinned at me, but his fangs were barely visible. 

"I have something a little better. Or maybe not better, but just as good."

He disappeared for a moment, leaving me alone in the bed while he rummaged in the duffle bag in the other room. I hugged my arms around myself and rubbed up and down the soft fabric of the robe. I was very glad that, even though he wasn't allowing me to put real clothes on, he wasn't forcing me to be naked at the moment. 

Lex returned, still smiling, with a colorful glass pipe and one of the biggest, most beautiful bags of weed I'd ever seen. He held up the bag and showed it to me, then began packing a bowl on the table against the wall. 

"The only rule about this stuff, is that you have to share."

I looked at him incredulously. 

"Can you get high off it?" I wasn't aware of anything-other than esterwine and nicotine-that a first-generation Vamp could be affected by. But Lex nodded.

"I definitely can. And I like to. Frequently." He chuckled and took the first hit.

A vampire pothead? Well, if it made him more mellow, I was definitely down. When he passed the lighter and pipe to me I grasped it with eager monkey-fingers and lit up, sitting with my legs pulled against myself in the corner of the bed as I smoked. We passed the pipe between us in silence for a while, until it was done, and then he lay the pipe on the nightstand and got into bed next to me, pulling the covers over us again, and I tried not to cringe too much as he took me in his arms, drawing me close to him.

"Feeling a little calmer, now?"

I nodded even as my body stiffened up against him. In truth, I was feeling calmer. I was actually starting to feel really fucking high, and I wondered what kind of super-weed it takes to get a vampire stoned.

"This has kind of...an enhancing effect on the esterwine. You're going to feel pretty high."

Ah. Well, I was pretty okay with that. I looked at the vampire, who had resumed his relaxed posture, starting at the ceiling with a half-lidded gaze, but I could tell that the weed was affecting him. He didn't look like a cat lounging on the furniture- he was even more boneless, more relaxed than that. He looked like a cat had melted. It suddenly struck me as quite absurd, and I giggled. He turned and grinned at me.

"What?"

I shook my head, scooting back from him but he just squeezed me closer to him and kissed the top of my head, chuckling.

"Tell me," he coaxed, "It's alright. I've told you, you can say whatever you like. I'm not going to punish you for words." He stroked his fingers down my back, which was thankfully still covered in the robe.

"You look so chill...I just thought"- I shrugged-"it looked funny. In the moment." 

He smiled. "I take my comfort seriously."

We lay in silence for a while, everything floaty and surreal, the sounds of our breathing beginning to harmonize and fill the whole room. Finally I said-

"I can say anything to you? Does that mean I can ask you questions?"

Some of the black had receded from his eyes, so I noticed as they slid towards mine. Those shifts in appearance didn't seem to follow any logic that I could discern. He smiled slightly.

"I suppose."

I swallowed, shifting uncomfortably now that he'd turned the full force of his attention on me. 

"Was that human blood or vampire blood on you earlier?"

He raised an eyebrow and then chuckled. "Why on earth would it be vampire blood?"

I sighed and spread my hands- "Why would it be human blood!"

But he just frowned at me like I'd asked a very stupid question, which, in the fear-dulled swing of my high, was just more exasperating, and I groaned in frustration.

"Are you really going to be this unapologetically evil all the time?" I demanded.

He was laughing almost immediately, and looked at me as if I was daft. 

"I'm a vampire!" 

But I shook my head. "You're not like the others."

He sobered and his eyes narrowed to unreadable slits as he nodded in agreement. "That's true...Second-gens are a bit different."

He didn't seem inclined to elaborate, so I didn't push, but then he reached down and began running his fingers up my leg, pausing to trace circles on my thigh.

"Brent has a theory," I blurted.

His fingers stilled on my skin, and then it was his turn to sigh.

"Well if you're trying to make me lose my erection, you probably picked an appropriate topic of conversation there."

I didn't say respond for a beat. Was he angry at me? I wouldn't be too devastated if he lost his sexual appetite for a while, that was for sure. After a moment he removed his hand from my leg and shifted, propping his head up on one arm so he could watch me as I talked. 

"No, go on. I want to hear this now. What was Brent's theory?"

I swallowed. I realized suddenly that this was possibly sensitive information to possess, even if it was all conjecture. It could be bad news for Brent if I blabbed to a Vamp about what he suspected. But I wasn't at all sure that I cared much about Brent's safety.

"Well...I mean what we're intended to believe, that vampires showed up just 80 years ago for the first time...I mean, no one really thinks that, do they?"

"You'd be surprised at what people will believe, just because you tell them to."

"True..." I relented, "but still...there is a huge cultural library of shit involving vampire-like creatures- you've got Dracula, Buffy-"

He snorted, cutting me off. "Dracula and Buffy are the cultural references you're going with there, really?"

I spread my hands in a 'what do you want from me' gesture, and he scowled. 

"Right," he agreed, sounding a bit grumpy. "There are lots of people who think we were here beforehand-or that we've always been here. That's nothing new. Does Bren't theory differ from that in any way?"

He seemed bored, and almost a little tired, as though I'd intrigued, but already disappointed him. Geeze, he really was terribly prone to boredom, wasn't he? Perhaps I could use that to my advantage, somehow. 

"Brent thinks that vampires were here almost all along- at least long enough that humans were never really top of the food chain. He thinks that they were genetically manipulating humans even then."

That must have been a twist for him, because his attention snapped back to me as if it had been stretched on a rubber band.

"But," I continued, feeling a little encouraged by the notion that I might actually be getting in on the secrets of the world here, "he thinks it went on at a much smaller scale than say, what happened with the the F-virus. He thinks that a group of Vamps arrived here 80 years ago, as well, just not..."

The way that the vampire had sat up, pulling his legs underneath him Indian style, then cocked his head to the side in that completely unnatural way was really creeping me the fuck out.

"Go on," Lex encouraged, his voice soft. Okay, maybe striking up a conversation was a bad idea. I just wasn't going to look at him while we talked.

"He thinks that the two subspecies of vampires- first-gen and second-gen – are genetically separated by at least 5,000 years, and that's taking into account their ability to modify themselves." I couldn't explain it in the scientific terms Brent had used, but I was doing my best to relay the meaning.

"And which kind," the vampire asked, his voice as smooth purr, "was the one here all along?"

I took a breath and plunged on, curiosity momentarily blocking out other emotions. "Brent said he hadn't met many second-generation Vamps, but that they seemed the most likely candidate."

"And why is that?"

"Umm..." I was looking everywhere but the vampire. "He said that they were better adapted to the planet and blended in better with humans. At the same time, they all basically fit the human definition of a psychopath, causing a reign of terror that created a whole mythology, inspiring ideas of the paranormal, ideas of evil, influencing religion..."

I trailed off, because while in the safety of the Center, when Brent had explained his ideas as we passed a joint on the rooftop it had seemed quite intriguing. Now, it felt like I was telling a ghost story in which I was the inevitable victim. I looked at my hands...in my peripheral vision I could see the outline of him beside me, his head cocked at that abnormal angle, and I began to get that creeping, terrible feeling that I usually only associate with hallucinations. But the monster was right next to me this time, and he was very real.

"Look at me," he was saying, but I felt like a child being forced to peer under the bed with full knowledge that the boogeyman would be there, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I felt strong arms grab me and I went stiff as a board as he lifted me. 

The drugs must have been giving me time skips, because the next thing I knew I was on my back on the carpet of the living room floor, and Lex was cuddling up next to me.

"Hey." He turned my face to his. "I had to move you. You're just determined to have a bad trip."

Dawn had broken, and the sun was streaming in through the windows. Some piece of glass or water somewhere was acting as a prism, because I saw rainbows dancing on the back of the couch. We were sprawled on the floor in a band of warming light. With the sun reflecting off of his features, the vampire looked strikingly human. I could see the whites of his eyes. I could even make out mildly brown irises, and there was almost nothing threatening about his features. I reached up and touched his face. I was high as a kite and I wasn't coming down any time soon.

"It's an illusion." I drawled.

"Mmmhmm." He kissed my fingertips. "And it's a damn good one. It makes you feel better, doesn't it?"

It did make me feel better. I nodded, and he nodded back.

"We'll keep it for a while, then. No bad trips for you." He stroked down the side of my neck with his fingertips. His fingers felt cool on my sun warmed skin.

"So you think I'm an earthborn monster, then?" he asked mildly. "Some legendary horror? Am I Dracula? Nosferatu?"

In the sunlight he was so much less scary, that I giggled. 

"Well not you, specifically."

He put on a look of mock offense and spread a hand over his chest.

"You don't think I could be Dracula?"

"Uhhh..." I pursed my lips together. He continued to put on offended expressions. It was weird for a vampire to have a sense of humor in the first place. But when he wasn't being terrifying, he was actually kind of a dork. Weirdly, it reminded me a little of Brent.




Ghosts Ch. 08



"You're way more badass than Dracula," I offered.

He laughed and pulled me closer to him, spooning.

"You think flattery will get you somewhere with me?"

I shrugged. "I'm experimenting."

He just squeezed me against him again, and I found I wasn't too bothered by it. Spread out in the sun that streamed into the building, in the daze of my high, everything just seemed peaceful and warm for the moment. The painkillers he'd given me were wearing off and I was beginning to feel a persistent throb in my left arm. For all intents and purposes, it had looked completely healed-if badly healed. I wondered what was causing the pain, and if there would always be pain. But I couldn't bring myself to dwell on it. 

"You seem weirdly cuddly." I observed. I'd decided to get my mileage out of the freedom-of-expression clause that was apparently part of our contract. Most humans won't give you permission to say absolutely anything to them. It was sort of novel.

"My kind of vampires are cuddly," he informed me. "We're big on comfort, and lounging. Kind of like cats."

"I knew it!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were like a cat."

"Uh huh." He patted me on the head. "A lot of people make that observation, but you go ahead and feel special."

I glared at him, and he just smiled back. His smile was fond, almost kind. I didn't trust it for a second.

"Was that vampire blood or human blood on you earlier?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought we discussed this already."

I shook my head. "I feel like you avoided the question."

He cocked his head and spread his hands, posing the same question he posed before. "Why would it be vampire blood?"

"I don't know, but I don't think a human could have left those defensive wounds on you." I glanced at his arms. There were still barely perceptible marks there. 

He gave me a long, searching look, followed by a slow, appreciative smile. 

"Clever girl. You're right. It's human and vampire blood. Does that make you feel better?"

No...that was probably the worst answer he could have given me, actually. I shook my head and started to scoot away from him, feeling a little sick about it all. But he petted and soothed me.

"Shush. It's all right. It's over now."

We just lay like that for a while, sun beating down on us, brighter and hotter. Finally I looked at Lex, who gazed back at me, lazy and content.

"I thought sunlight was bad for vampires." I gestured at the display of him sunning like a lizard on a rock, and he shrugged.

"It's not good for us. It's kind of like smoking. Bad for you, but hurts so good and makes you feel cool." He grinned at me.

"Are you being serious?"

He nodded at me, smiling, and I just shook my head, unsure what to make of him. He grasped one of my hands and squeezed. 

"I'm about ready to go back in the bedroom, though," he said, his voice mild. He looked at me pointedly. "Are you going to freak out?"

"I don't know," I said honestly, and he gave me a sympathetic look as he pulled me to my feet.

"Let's give it a try."

And then I was being led into the dimly lit room and ushered onto the bed. Almost immediately he started to untie the robe, and chuckled at what he found there. I'd knotted it in about three very tight knots without even realizing it. Lex didn't comment on it though, and didn't seem to have too much trouble with them. He eased the robe off my shoulders and kissed my shoulder gently. Then he lightly pushed me onto my back. He stretched out next to me and draped a hand over my belly, stroking slightly.

"This doesn't have to be so bad, does it?" he crooned.

The haze of the drugs cleared for a moment and I just stared at him incredulously. "You broke my fucking arm."

He smiled almost sheepishly, as if he'd been caught trying to get away with something.

"So I did."

He handled my arm in his hands and examined the former break.

"I fixed it."

"Badly!" 

He shrugged. "Maybe if you're good, I'll break it again and fix it the right way."

My mouth went dry. It was a threat as casual as it was ambiguous, and it made me feel utterly helpless. I felt like I might cry again. But he was suddenly gone. I looked around and spotted him rummaging in the big chest that now sat ominously against the far bedroom wall. He found what he was looking for and approached the bed with some colorful silk scarves in his hands.

"I'm going to tie you up," he informed me, I guess in case I wasn't following things.

He was an expert at tying knots, and within seconds he had my arms spread and my wrists secured to the headboard. It seemed to have special slats and holes specifically for this kind of thing. I tried not to look at him, and his hungry eyes on me. I felt terribly exposed. But he wasn't making me look at him. In fact, he tied one of those scarves quickly, in a shiftless blindfold around my head.

I can't see anything, but I can feel him moving around the bed and he grabs an ankle. I instinctively pull back, but it's so futile. His grip is inhumanly strong. I really don't want to be tied spread-eagled. I have the feeling I've been tied up that way before and it wasn't a good experience. When he secures the other foot, I start to cry quietly. I can't help it. I don't want this. I feel the blindfold being untied by swift fingers, and then I'm suddenly gazing into Lex's face as it hovers over mine. But his features are unsympathetic.

"I like to tie girls up." he says, as if it really all is just as simple as that. He reaches for the lube that still sits on the nightstand, then pours a generous amount of it into his palm. Like, a ton of it. Way more than he used on me before. My eyes widen and I strain against the scarves as I realize what he intends. He means to give me enough of the drug that I'm like a mindless cat in heat, and leave me tied here for fucking indefinitely. Oh, God. I won't last long this way. He's basically admitted he's a psychopath and a murderer. Does he really give a shit whether I live in the end?

"No, don't" I plead, suddenly desperate. His hand pauses dangerously close to my nether regions, holding in limbo that whopping dose of sexual stimulants. I simply can't allow him to turn me into a thing. If he sees me as nothing more than a thing, he will only grow bored with me, and his boredom could be a death sentence.

"Don't put that on me. Please. I'll do anything you want."

Luckily, he doesn't seem angered by my begging this time. He just cocks his head in thought. Then he leaves the room abruptly, and I strain nervously in my bonds until I hear the water running in the kitchen. He's washing his hands. Thank God.

Then he's back in the bedroom, shutting the door behind him, leaving us alone in darkness again.

"Anything I want, huh? I do like the sound of that."

I frown at him. Something gives me pause, even amidst the stress of my current predicament. Something about this all seemed too rehearsed. Had he ever intended to give me that drug? Was he just pushing me to get the responses he wanted?

"Are you just playing with me?" I experience a sudden wave of misery. "Is this all a joke to you? Are you really going to take me to the States, or do you plan on just killing me before you leave here?" 

My voice is breaking, and I'm really starting to cry now. I'm in such a pitiful position, stretched naked and helpless on this bed in before a monster. I notice him frowning at me, but mostly I'm absorbed in tears now. I don't look as I feel him untie the scarves around my ankles, then my wrists, and then settle gently onto the bed next to me. We just lay there in silence for a while.

"You didn't react the way I though you would, just then," says the vampire.

"How did you expect me to react?" My voice sounds hollow and far away. I'm still high, I realize. I'm just not having a very good time of it anymore. Lex doesn't answer me, and I realize that I don't particularly care about his answer, so that's alright.

"Maybe I've been a little harsh with you." His voice was thoughtful.

Was he kidding me?

I shot him an incredulous look, but his expression was unreadable. As he studied me I began to curl further into a little ball.

"I still want to fuck you." He said, his tone matter-of-fact. 

"Okay." My tone was weary, tired and defeated. I just didn't know what else to say. He chuckled a little, then wrapped his hand in my hair and pulled my head back at an uncomfortable angle until my neck arched towards him, and then he struck. I fought instinctively, thrashing and trying to get away from him, clawing at the sheets. He growled then, but the growl was some sort of weird psychic trick because it reverberated all the way through my body. It felt like standing next to a speaker at a concert. I stilled against him as the pain ebbed into something more tolerable. His hand slipped between my legs and to my embarrassment, I was soaked. I cringed, and he laughed at my apparent discomfort. 

"Aww," he said, kissing the top of my forehead even as his fingers work their way inside me. "There's no shame in this, sweetheart." Then he smiles at me, showing a great deal of fang. "Not for you. You're my victim, and that makes you pure."

Well, that was the most profoundly creepy reassurance I'd ever received. He slipped two fingers all the way into me and began pumping them in and out slowly, massaging my inner walls as he did so. The pain medicine had long since worn off, and I was still sore from my earlier adventures in the shower...and the night before.

He's being quite gentle, and despite the soreness I can feel myself growing wetter, and I begin to squirm against his hand. But other than my involuntary sexual movements, I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. I shut my eyes and turned my head to the side.

"Mmmm, what a poor, sacrificial lamb."

He's mocking me, but I don't have the energy to care. I feel his hand grip my chin and turn my face towards him, and I start to shake, but I'm not sure if it's from arousal or fear. When he kisses me, I am completely unprepared for it. It's a real kiss this time- forceful enough that when my lips part in surprise his tongue sweeps in and overwhelms my mouth. Vampires did not, in my experience, kiss in the way humans did, and yet it was definitely happening here. I couldn't recall anyone ever kissing me before. The humans at Blood Money hadn't been interested in it, and neither had Victor. The way his tongue coaxed and twined with mine was warm, slippery and...weird. I pulled back, looking at him questioningly. He gave me a gentle smile and then circled his thumb around my clit, causing a whimper to escape me. His smile turned wolfish and he pumped his fingers in and out of me faster, causing me to writhe helplessly on the bed. 

"You can come whenever you want, this time." His voice is rough, growly. I can feel the length of his cock pressing into my side. I really wished he hadn't given me that kind of freedom, because I was afraid I was seriously going to humiliate myself. I whimpered and jerked as he scraped his fingernails over my g-spot, pain and pleasure combining into something impossible, but I fought it as hard as I could. But then he growled, and it felt like my whole body vibrated, and it was enough to push me over the edge. I couldn't stop the moan that escaped my lips, or the shudders that wracked me. I grasped at him stupidly as the storm overtook me, holding onto his arms, even pulling his hair. I shook all over and whimpered mindlessly, but he wouldn't let me come down. He pumped his fingers out of me faster and harder until my hips resumed their motion and I was clawing at him. He kept going until my body seemed to seize up and I went limp, inner muscles spasming around his fingers hard, one final time. 

He removed his hand and I just lay there, motionless, feeling tingly all over and sort of weightless. I hated that it was so easy for him to do this to me, and as soon as I could move my limbs I was scooting away from him. I really didn't want him touching me, even if my body seemed to like it at times. But he pulled me back into the curve of his body and began running his fingertips gently down the from of me. I let myself fall back into him, feeling resigned. Maybe it wouldn't last much longer. 

I heard a low snarl and I jerked, confused, but it seemed to end in a sigh, and his hand stilled over my bellybutton. I heard him swear under his breath, but it wasn't in English.

"I want you to like it." He said, and he sounded genuinely unhappy. When I turned to face him, he studied me with the troubled expression of a child who just found that his exciting new toy lacked an important feature. It was unsettling. I just stared back at him, unsure how to make sense of the situation and feeling too tired to try. 

He shook his head at me as if irritated. "Humans are so ridiculous with their shame and their complexes. I truly don't envy them. You have these amazing orgasms. You just come apart in my arms. You should be able to enjoy that shit. It's just like any other drug. You love drugs." His voice was a purr.

"You should be a motivational speaker," I said. He gave me an amused look.

Then I said, "I'm not human."

He frowned at me and waved a hand. "Oh, you're really close enough. It's humans who chose to make that distinction, not us. They're just prejudiced idiots. Vampires think of Feeders as human."

Good to know, I guess. Lex was studied me thoughtfully, like he was really considering something. 

"I'll go slow with you," he offered. He was looking at me with something that closely resembled concern. I didn't trust it for a second. Vampires do not feel emotions in the way that humans do. It is true that their behaviors are more complex and less easily categorized than the average human sociopath. But emotionally, there are a lot of similarities. 

His voice had been like dripping honey, but I had the impression that he was having a very difficult time not touching me. I looked at his hands, fisted in the sheets. Nevertheless, he wasn't touching me, and I took that opportunity to scoot back and wrap the sheet around me the best I could. The feel of the fabric covering my skin calmed me, and I studied his face, which was partially shadowed.

"What do you mean by that?" I was pleased with myself for keeping my voice steady.

He appeared to think about that for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was a catlike purr. "I'd go slow," he repeated. "We could put clothes on right now. We'd just cuddle for tonight. And I'd seduce you. I can make you like it, Pieyla. I can make you like it very much. Let me make you feel good. Let me help you escape." His voice brushed over me like fur, and I thought he might be doing some weird psychic shit. Or I was just high. He raised his eyebrows. "But you have to try. You have to, or it will take me...much longer." He appeared to think for a moment. "Probably longer than I have patience for, in any case." 

He shrugged, and fixed me with a coaxing look. It was amazing, how expressive his face could be. First-gen Vamps rarely showed emotion at all. They were almost impossible to read. I felt like Lex really telegraphed his emotions. Most likely, though, they were just careful imitations of human expressions. It would me a mistake, to humanize him, I thought. 

When he fixed me with big, sympathetic eyes and took one of my hands gingerly, I broke out in goosebumps instead of feeling soothed. I knew it wasn't real. And yet I had no doubt he could seduce me if I put in even the slightest effort. He was too cunning, to skilled at this. I tried to consider it. I knew that, logically, it was best not to turn down any reprieve he might offer me, if only for the sake of my physical well being. Even if the compassion was false, the gentleness would be real, and I was already kind of taking a beating. But my gut roiled at the mere thought of him seducing me. For one thing, I thought of sex as ugly and cruel and I wasn't particularly interested in being convinced otherwise. And I was already feeling quite overwhelmed by the otherworldly creature in bed with me. He was like a force of nature, like a storm, and I was terrified that if I connected with him in any way he would simply bowl over what little personality I had managed to construct for myself in the past year or so. And with no memory of me previous life, a glitchy brain, and an indeterminate life span (spending all your time with vampires is sort of a high-risk activity), that was really all I had left. 

"Pieyla." The vampire was snapping his fingers in front of my face. He took my hand in his and rubbed his thumb over my palm. I just looked at him.

"I'm thinking about it."

He almost gaped on me, but settled on an expression of mild surprise. "Weren't you listening to me? I said we could both go put our clothes on right-"

"I think I'd rather just fight you," I said, and my voice sounded empty. I had looked away when I said it, probably instinctively expecting a slap, but when I looked back I was struck by the genuineness of the emotion on the vampire's face. Something about his expression rang true. The look I saw was not anger, or sympathy. It was pity. The vampire felt sorry for me.

And in that moment, I hated him. I felt like a well of hatred opened up within me, and I hated him in a way I wouldn't have realized possible. I hated him in a way that had almost nothing to do with him, and everything to do with him being male, and an asshole. My anger made me feel sharp and alert- it made my mind feel clean, like a blade. And as I looked at his tightly clenched jaw, the subtle hum of his body, I saw weakness in him. It was like an epiphany. Second-generation vampires differed from first-generation all right, and the manner in which they differed was primal. Maybe that savage nature made them more powerful, but they lost something in the process, and that was control. He found it extremely difficult to deny his instincts. 

I bit my lip as hard as I could, and let the blood run down my face. 

He tensed all over and started to crouch on the bed, giving a low are-you-sure-you-want-to-do-this warning growl that shook the whole room. I jerked my arm, and when he automatically clenched his hand tighter around it I began to struggle, and as I expected, he pounced. He pulled the sheet from me, pinned my arms to the bed and began pushing his cock into me almost instantly. He captured my lip in his mouth and suckled. His fangs pierced it again, much more deeply than my own teeth had, and when I cried out he covered my whole mouth with his in a savage imitation of a kiss, drawing the blood from me. 

I was still wet from when he had touched me earlier, and he slid into me and I winced. I was sore as hell, and he began to fuck me brutally. He released my mouth and brought his lips to my ear.

"Cum any time you want," he growled, his voice like gravel, his tone slightly angry, and again, I wished he hadn't offered me that freedom. Though I wasn't anywhere close- it was simply too painful. I felt like I was being stabbed. But then he pulled out of me with rather jarring quickness and grabbed me by the hips, pulling me to the edge of the bed. He held my ankles up, exposing me, easily bending me in two. I tried to push at him with my hands and scoot backwards, but he tightened his grip, squeezing my achilles heels until it was extremely painful, and I felt like he might do permanent damage. I stilled, and he transferred both ankles to one hand. With his free hand he drew some of the wetness from where we were joined and smeared it onto my clit, circling, teasing, tugging it a little. And my hips began to move in cooperation with his thrusts, and pain gradually began to blend with pleasure until I couldn't tell the difference anymore. I thought it was pretty fucked up that I couldn't tell the difference. I'm not sure I would be able to tell if he was seriously injuring me. 




Ghosts Ch. 08



He was snarling now, and he was ferocious looking, but the panic, when I felt it, just seemed to add to my own arousal. I shattered around him, the sensation torture and bliss. My muscles clenched around his cock so hard I nearly pushed him out, but he released my ankles and grabbed my hips and drove himself into the hilt, forcing me to feel every inch as my inner walls gripped him. I cried out, and he cursed appreciatively and growled, but didn't stop. He kept driving into me as he leaned forward and ran his tongue over my nipples. Normally that would have brought forth rather bad memories, but I was too overwhelmed for that at the moment, and it just felt good. I came apart underneath him again, almost immediately. He was relentless. He brought me to orgasm again and again, until I alternated between laying limp and passive and sobbing and pleading mindlessly and clawing at his chest and back, which he didn't especially seem to mind. I don't know how long he fucked me, but it was far longer that most humans would probably be able to accomplish. When he finally finished, slamming into me one last time and filling me with hot seed, I simply lay on the bed, sweaty and exhausted, muscles twitching, feeling bruised and numb. He rolled off me, and I didn't protest as he positioned me on to my side and pulled the covers over us, holding me. We stayed like that for a while as I drifted in and out of consciousness, and just before I fell asleep I felt him leave me, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him.



Ghosts Ch. 09



I squinted in the mild illumination of Lex's bedroom, unsuccessfully trying to make out the features of the painting on the wall in front of me. It was darker in here than it had been before, but the darkness was a blessing. My head was pounding, I was terribly thirsty, and nearly every part of my body ached. I felt as though someone had run me through a blender and then put me back together rather sloppily. Bright light would be a torture at the moment. Perhaps, I thought, I had slept until night and it wouldn't be an issue. I tried to move, but my limbs felt like dead weights, and it was difficult. Finally I succeeded in rolling on my back and stretching my legs out. Breathing was a little hard; my lungs ached, possibly from all the gasping for breath while I struggled and sobbed beneath...no. I tried to shove the thought aside, but things were coming back to me. Around orgasm number four, time had started to get really distorted, but based on my current physical state he must have actually fucked me for hours. 

"Jesus," I muttered, and my throat felt very sore and strange. Had he choked me, at some point? Or maybe it was just from all the...sounds I had been making. I wasn't certain. My eyes fluttered shut. It could be that more rest was in order. But just as I was about to drift into oblivion, a stronger pain began to thrum against the inside of my skull, and a familiar wetness trailed down my face. My eyes snapped open. Shit. Now I had to get up. I succeeded in pulling the covers off myself, and glanced down at my naked body- pale and thin, flat-chested, with quite a tapestry of bruises and scrapes. 

"Move," I told the body.

I felt the spark within me that I had been searching for, and animated myself to stand, locate and pull on the robe I had been wearing before, and stumble to the bedroom door. I paused and leaned my forehead against the cool, solid wood. I took a few deep breaths, ignoring the pain. The pain was irrelevant- the only thing now was calming my short circuiting brain before the situation became disastrous. Brent had always been anxious-looking and reluctant to give a direct answer whenever I asked if the headaches could be causing actual physical brain damage, and I considered that pretty worrying. As my hand grasped the doorknob I paused, apprehensive, wondering if Lex was waiting for me on the other side. But this also was irrelevant. I would have to face him eventually. 

I opened the door, and was immediately greeted with a blinding shaft of sunlight that went straight through my eyes and into my brain like a fiery hot knife. I slammed the door shut, leaning my head against it again, and let out a long stream of curses as my nose dripped blood onto the tops of my feet, making gross little splat sounds. I opened the door again, and stumbled through the living room with my eyes open as little as possible, shielding them with my hands. By the time I got to the refrigerator my legs started to give up, but that was fine. This was as far as I needed to go. I pulled open the door as I knelt on the floor, savoring the cooled air that rushed over my face, pulled out a bright green bottle and popped off the cap. I shut the door and nearly fell backwards so that I was sitting with my back against the side of the kitchen counter and my legs stretched in front of me. I kept my eyes closed as I savored the first few sips, the chilled liquid easing the soreness of my throat, and then forced myself to chug the rest of it. 

Damn, esterwine was definitely an improvement on human alcohol-you could get drunk and rehydrate at the same time. I waited for a moment, and felt the very first tendrils of a buzz coming on, but I wasn't sure it would be enough. I remembered the relative mildness of the drink I'd had the night before. I could definitely remedy my situation if I added pot to the mix...but getting back up, going into the bedroom, loading up a bowl...this seemed an impossible endeavor at the moment. So I scooted back over to the fridge door and grabbed bottle number two, which I sipped slowly until I'd consumed half of it, at which point the headache was starting to abate, and it seemed my nose was no longer dripping blood. As soon as the pressure in my head lessoned, the fatigue overtook me. I made an attempt to get up and go back to the bedroom, but my body disagreed with me, and I ended up pushing the partially full bottle away from me and stretching out on my side, my head resting on my arm. I felt like I could sleep more now, and maybe I would. Why not- the apartment appeared blissfully empty. Except for the prominent sounds outside that alerted me the fire escape window was open, I couldn't hear anyone moving around. I began to strive for the peace unconsciousness would provide, and I drifted. And then the bathroom door opened. 

My eyes snapped open, all thoughts of rest escaped me, and I struggled to sit back up. I was partially successful. I ended up leaning in a lopsided way against the counter again. I looked with bleary eyes to the bathroom, where steam billowed out and a cheerful-looking Lex emerged, naked and damp, toweling off his head and hair as he walked towards the bedroom, not even glancing at me. Yet, he addressed me as he walked across the living room. 

"I'm surprised you're up already. I thought you'd still be passed out when I left."

I said nothing, and then he paused at the open bedroom door. Perhaps he smelled the blood, because he turned on his heel and actually looked at me. I imagined I was a rather pitiful sight to behold, somewhere between sitting and laying, with a little puddle of blood on the floor, blood on my face, covered in bruises with rather cut up looking lips, straggled hair, and generally miserable expression. His cheerful expression faltered slightly, and he gave a put-upon sigh, then turned and walked into the bedroom.

Alright, then. I discontinued all efforts to stay remotely upright and collapsed back to the floor, studying the ceiling, which was painted a weird but not-ugly shade of brown. I was probably getting blood in my hair. I didn't care. I found myself trying to imagine myself somewhere different, somewhere nice, but the truth was, I just didn't have any nice memories to build that on. 

I heard footsteps approaching me, but kept my eyes on the ceiling, until Lex's searching face appeared over top of me as he stood, fully dressed now (black t-shirt, black jeans, go figure). He had his damp towel clutched in his hand, and he sighed at me again.

"Is this really going to be a regular thing? Christ, what a lemon of a slave you're turning out to be." 

But he didn't sound angry, and his lips quirked slightly. He knelt beside me and gently helped me back into a sitting position, and then began wiping off my face with the towel in the same manner a mother might clean a off a child after they'd eaten something particularly messy. I let him do it, saying nothing, trying not to look directly at him. Even if I'd felt capable of conversation, I had no idea what to say. He walked over and opened the door to the closet-type area by the bathroom that contained a small washer and dryer, and tossed it onto a pile of clothes before coming back to me. When he moved near me too quickly to snatch up the bottles of esterwine I couldn't help but flinch, and he glanced at me briefly, but didn't acknowledge it. He tossed the empty bottle into the trash and held onto the other as he turned at studied me for a moment. 

"You look like shit," he said matter-of-factly. 

I just stared at him. He knelt again and rolled up the sleeves of my robe, studying the bruises on my arms and wrists. As he loosened the ties of my robe with his free hand and exposed me, I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes, but he just ran his rough fingertips lightly over the front of me and then closed the robe over me without tying it. When I looked at him again, he was frowning, and seemed troubled by something.

"I really didn't think you'd be this damaged," he muttered, almost to himself. "Maybe it's because you're so malnourished...hmmm."

I was actually mildly surprised at how shitty I felt too, given my enhanced healing abilities. But the injuries also seemed within the realm of possibility for the rather rough treatment I'd received last night. Not that I could really blame anyone but myself for that. I'd provoked him...again. I wondered briefly what the fuck was wrong with me, but immediately discarded the question. It would be simpler to ask what wasn't. 

I rubbed the bridge of my nose and swallowed, and it felt like I was swallowing over a cactus. Then I jerked, because the vampire had his face in my neck, and he was inhaling deeply...sniffing me. He abruptly stood up and swore.

"You're sick. How is that even fucking possible?" He sounded exasperated.

I was sick? I swallowed again painfully, assessed my over-warm state, and my general feeling of awfulness that didn't seem directly connected to the bruises that covered my body, or even my brain going haywire. Oh, ok. This was being sick. And I even knew where it had come from. 

"Oh," I said, my voice resembling the vocalizations of a toad. I swallowed again. The vampire raised his eyebrows.

"The girl I slept next to at The Center...caught something, the last time she was rented out. She had to go to the medical-corrections section for a bit. I don't know what it was. But I must have picked it up."

Lex was still looking displeased, which made me uneasy. I didn't want him displeased with me. I didn't want him...anything with me, or near me. I was clinging to the indication he'd made earlier that he was leaving soon. 

"Hmmm," said Lex, still staring down at me. "Still. That really shouldn't be possible. Maybe I should wait to go until tomorrow. I don't suppose it's that urgent..."

My heart sank, and I shook my head. "I'll be fine," I said, but my voice was hoarse and garbled by my increasingly swollen throat. 

Lex laughed at me and shook his head. "I might be able to fix you up by tonight, but you're in no state to be left alone today, that's for sure."

He just kept watching me for a while, with unnerving intensity, as if he were searching for something, or mulling over a decision. He was still holding the half full esterwine bottle by the neck, circling his thumb absently around the rim. Finally he seemed to come to some internal consensus, because he relaxed, looked away from me, and set the bottle on the table. He stretched himself and yawned, showing fang and moving his body in a way that was so weirdly snakelike and wrong that I had to look away for a moment, rattled. But just as quickly he resumed his relative humanness and braced his hands on the table, one on either side of the bottle. 

"I wasn't really planning on starting this yet, but you're just so...pitiful." 

He crinkled his nose at me before his face turned serious, concentrated. I watched with mutual apprehension and fascination as he held up his hands and sharp, black claws began to emerge from underneath his fingernails. I'd never seen anything like that before, or even heard of it. I would have probably been more freaked out if I'd had the energy for it. When they'd reached about half an inch long they appeared finished, and I could only stare as he positioned his left wrist directly over the bottle and used one claw on the opposite hand to cut a clean line across it. I took a sharp breath, expecting blood to come gushing out of the wound, but instead it trickled in a fine, neat stream straight down the neck of the bottle- it was almost as if he could control it. I was mildly transfixed as the red blood mixed with the lighter fluid, churning and bubbling in an unnatural matter, as if a chemical reaction were taking place. As he continued to bleed into the bottle, the churning liquid began to darken and appear thicker, until it was the deepest black, and it looked like a bottle of boiling oil. Occasionally tendrils of the liquid would begin to creep up the neck of the bottle of their own accord, as if it were alive, and Lex would flick a claw lightly against the glass a few times to disrupt their ascent. When the bottle was a little over three quarters full he appeared satisfied and turned his wrist upright, at which point the blood flow stopped almost entirely. He raised his wrist to his mouth in a delicate gesture and licked it several times as an animal might lick a wound, and when he stopped, it appeared completely healed. He brought his right hand to his mouth and licked clean the claw he'd used to make the cut. The claws receded back into his fingertips until his hands appeared human again. But the mix of blood and esterwine was still churning and trying to climb up the sides. Lex pressed his palm against the top of the bottle, snagged a chair with his foot, maneuvered it behind him and sat. He watched the bottle intently and appeared to be waiting for something. After a moment he glanced up at me.

"It just takes a little while," he informed me. 

I really didn't know what the fuck was going on.

"What takes"- 

He made a gesture to cut me off. "Yeah, you shouldn't talk, your throat is really fucked up and you don't want to make it worse."

I stayed silent. After a while the turmoil within the bottle almost stopped, and the fluid was barely moving- though it did slowly swirl and slosh from side to side a bit very mildly, just enough that it was still eerie. But this was apparently the state he had been trying to achieve, because he removed his hand from the bottle and got up, grabbed a large glass from the cabinet, and proceeded to fill it with ice. Only then did I allow myself to acknowledge what he actually intended, and I began to feel nauseous. 

He poured the drink over the ice, and the way the ice popped and fizzled and dissolved almost immediately, so maybe the bubbling had indicated boiling after all. However, what caused it to boil or climb up the side of the glass was a mystery. I really didn't want to consume something that seemed to defy normal physical properties. I watched as Lex added a bit more ice to the glass, and then a bit more, until it had cooled substantially and the ice could float around without being dissolved immediately. The liquid looked a lot more calm now- I couldn't see it moving, and it had been diluted with the melted ice...though the black liquid and the water from the ice didn't seem to be mixing very well. And...well, maybe I did notice a strange, unusual swirling of the black contrasting with the clear water. I really did not feel good about this. 

"I'm not drinking that," I croaked.

He seemed utterly unimpressed by my declaration as he concentrated on the contents of the glass. "Mmmmhmm," was all he said. I didn't know what the hell that meant.

"What the fuck is that stuff? Is it alive?" I blurted.

He turned his full attention and focus on me and it was palpable, and his intense stare made me feel more naked than I was underneath my robe. 

"I thought I told you not to speak."

I shut up. Talking was difficult anyway. I felt like shit. The fever was rising, and I was starting to sweat, and I really wanted to get out of this robe, but that would mean getting naked in front of him, which I was determined not to do willingly. 

"One more minute," Lex informed me. That minute creeped by extremely slowly, but then Lex was walking over to me with the glass and presenting it, just as I had expected it. Slowly I raised my hand and grasped the glass. It was neither hot or cold. I started at the swirling black, and it almost looked like tiny, liquid snakes swimming around in the glass. I closed my eyes.

"What is this going to do to me?" I asked, again breaking his no-talking rule, but he answered me anyway.

"Help make you better."

I swallowed. I would definitely like to feel better. Whatever this was getting worse rapidly enough to worry me, and it probably didn't help that I had no memory of being sick before this. I looked again at the black liquid snakes in my glass. They were forming rather intricate patterns. There would have been something beautiful and enchanting about it, I admitted to myself, if I was not faced with the prospect of gulping it down. 

"Will it harm me? Will it change me in some way?" My voice had turned to a sort of choking whisper. 

"Ohhh," drawled Lex, in a tone that suggested I was being silly. "I guarantee it won't hurt you more than anything else that's been done to you."

That was not reassuring, but I guess it was all I was going to get. I still held the glass in both hands, the bottom of it resting on my lap. I swirled it around tentatively. 

"Will it give me superpowers?" 

"Oh, now you're just stalling," Lex said, but he laughed. He knelt near me again, and pulled my left hand away from the glass, massaging it slightly. Then his fingers slowly slid, searchingly, sensuously, down my arm, until they were running over the ridge in at the breaking mark of the bone, toying with it, circling it with his thumb. 

"But in the end, none of that matters, does it? Because you're going to drink it now."

I supposed that was true. I raised the glass to my lips, and drank. 

I had to suppress the immediate, reflexive urge to spit if everywhere. I didn't even register the taste- all my attention centered on the fact that it squirmed inside my mouth, writhing over and under my tongue. I forced myself to swallow it, and looked at the remainder of the glass miserably. I glanced at Lex, who crossed his arms and gave me an irritated look. 

"What."

"It moves," I whispered, desperately hoping he would sympathize. He rolled his eyes as if I were being ridiculous, even as he bent and took the glass from my hands, inspecting it. 

"It's got to be at least 95 percent inert, and that 5 percent isn't going to hurt you."

Oh, God. He was going to force me to drink it. 

But he didn't. Instead he set the glass on the table and dropped a few more ice cubes in it. Then he opened the kitchen drawer nearest the counter-which apparently did not contain kitchen supplies, because he produced a cigarette and a lighter, and began to smoke.

A peculiar consequence of the Vamp invasion was a complete revival of the tobacco industry. Perhaps nicotine did something for them, but Vamps seemed utterly uninterested in the electronic devices that had almost entirely replaced cigarettes. Mostly, they just seemed to enjoy the novelty of breathing fire- and it wasn't as though it could actually hurt them. Lex's pleasure was obvious as he took long drags on the cig, occasionally blowing smoke rings. A couple minutes ticked by, in which I kept glancing nervously between Lex and the mysterious, volatile beverage. Not until he finished the cig did he retrieve the glass and hand it to me. 

"Alright, no more being a baby about it. Drink."

I looked at it. The black liquid still seemed unable to merge with the water, but it was no longer moving in a way that seemed unnatural. I took a sip, and to my relief it no longer felt like I was drinking tiny, live worms. I was reminded of a thick, chocolaty tasting beer- but strangely tangy and spicy, as though someone had stirred in some siracha sauce. It was not so unpleasant. It was drinkable.

I sipped it slowly while Lex poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate standing, leaning against the counter, crunching loudly. When he finished, he slurped down the leftover milk. It was just weird when he acted so human and...normal. I drained the last of the glass around the same time, and my throat was already feeling slightly better. I guessed it was working...whatever the hell it was. 

"Can you stand?"

I assessed myself. I was hot and sticky and generally felt gross, and I still ached all over. My ears felt as though someone had stuffed warm cotton into them, and I had to pee. Yet I wasn't as nauseous or dizzy as I had been. I slowly got to my feet and took a few experimental, wobbly steps. Lex steadied me, and began to lead me out of the kitchen. 




Ghosts Ch. 09



"Let's get you cleaned up."

I had a sudden flash of us in the shower-: my arm snapped in two, the impossible pain, his hand gripping my throat, the sheer terror of it- and I faltered. He caught me easily and gave me a brief, searching look, but then continued to lead me towards the bathroom. I tried to get a control of my panic as we reached it, feeling absurdly as though I was being led to the gallows. My heart sped immediately at the sight of the shower door, slightly open, showing a bit of the all too familiar interior. I forced myself to look away, and was greeted with the sight of a still-full tub. 

"The water is lukewarm at best, but that's probably good if you're running a fever."

I tried to stifle the sound as breath I hadn't knew I'd been holding escaped me. He wasn't going to make me get in there again. The situation improved more when he removed his supporting hand from my back, and took a step away from me. 

"Do you think you can handle this by yourself? I have shit to do."

Oh, thank Christ. I nodded my head with such enthusiasm that I found myself wincing as another bolt of pain shot through it. He chuckled and walked away, closing the door being him. I stared at the shut door for moment and then, on impulse, reached out and turned the lock. It certainly wasn't going to bar a vampire from the room, but it made me feel better all the same. I dropped the robe to the floor and as the air hit my hot, sticky skin I felt immediately better. I had been burning up. I faced the tub. It seemed odd, that he hadn't drained it...but perhaps as his new maid and servant, that sort of thing was to be my responsibility. I tested the water and found it still warm enough that I didn't want to get in it just yet, so I took care of my other needs and then spent quite a long time brushing my teeth and splashing cold water over my face while trying to avoid my own anxious expression in the mirror. In the back of my mind, I was thinking that if I stayed in here long enough he might just be gone by the time I came out.

When I dipped my finger in the tub again, it was no longer warm, and I slipped in, sighing as cool water lapped away the sweat and blood and various other fluids that I'd accumulated in my bedroom adventures. I used more of the raspberry soap, and stayed in the tub until my fingers and toes were prunes and I was actually beginning to feel cold. The fever was dwindling, and scratchiness in my throat was all but gone. As I stood and examined myself, I found that even my bruises had faded. Whatever mystical reaction had occurred in that esterwine bottle, it had created some seriously potent medicine. 

I dried off, wrapped the towel around me, and just stood staring at the door stupidly as I listened to the sound of the tub draining. Was he still out there? I hadn't heard him leave the apartment, but I was learning that I couldn't expect to hear Lex's comings or goings. Nevertheless, I found myself leaning against the door with my ear pressed to it in a futile effort to determine if he was out there. And then a high pitched "eeep" sound escaped me as the door unlocked and opened in one swift movement, and I tumbled headfirst into a laughing vampire.

"I'm sorry," he said, grinning mischievously as helped me stand upright again. "I just couldn't resist. Come on."

For a second, I thought he was leading me to his bedroom again, and I was wondering if it would do me any good to protest. Instead, he took me to the second bedroom and leaned in the doorway, gesturing inside. 

"Get dressed."

I wasn't thrilled about him just looming there watching me, but I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to put on clothes. I turned my back to him, tossed the towel over the bedpost and began to hastily dress. I could feel his eyes on me as I pulled on some red, lacy underwear, a pink bra, a black skirt, and a low-cut white top. All the clothes were revealing enough that there wasn't much point in being choosy. Still, I felt much better once they were on, and ran my fingers over the fabric, pulling the shirt and skirt down to cover as much as possible, and almost forgot about the powerful male in the doorway for a few merciful seconds. 

"You really seem to like clothes. Did he simply keep you naked all the time?"

I jerked and looked at him. Again I had the dreadful feeling that he could see right inside my brain.

"I can't read your mind," he said as if in response, smiling slightly. "But that doesn't mean your thoughts aren't fairly obvious to me anyway." 

He appeared to think for a moment, and said, "You can buy some more conservative clothes if you like, just don't make the mistake of wearing the around me if you want to keep them intact."

He grinned briefly, then changed topics, looking around the room and making a sweeping gesture. 

"This is your space. Put your shit away, decorate it how you like. Think of it as sanctuary. I won't come into it without invitation unless I have good reason to." He raised an eyebrow at me. "You had just better come when called, are we understood?"

I nodded dumbly, dismissing any feelings of excitement about this new development as premature. I was wondering if I was expected to thank him, when he fully rose and held out a hand for me to take. 

"Come on, we have something else to address."

I came to him and took it immediately, not wanting to disrupt his seemingly amicable mood, but when I realized he was leading me back towards the bathroom, my steps began to drag a little. This didn't seem promising. 

He released my hand and let me stand just outside the room as he walked over and kicked open the shower door. I tried to keep my expression blank as I looked at the tiles that I had been plastered against not long ago. I tried not to think of his face, monstrous and snarling, of the blood, the humiliation of my arousal, the pain...

I looked away. I was shaking.

"You're afraid of the shower."

I shook my head in extremely unconvincing denial, but I still wasn't looking at him. He remained silent until I did, and when I finally glanced up I was surprised to find his expression mildly sympathetic. He sighed, shaking his head. 

"I sometimes forget, how specific and bizarre human traumas can be. It's difficult for me to even imagine. More advanced species..." he trailed off and waved a hand dismissively. "Well, that doesn't matter. Humans though, they get caught in these very basic conditioning loops. You can reverse them, but you need to act quickly, or things get muddled. So let's get in the shower."

My eyes snapped shut, and I felt a lump growing in my throat that had nothing to do with being sick. For a moment of intense disconnect it was as though I became a tree, heavy and stiff and rooted straight into the ground. But then I opened my eyes, coming back to myself, and saw Lex sitting on the dry shower floor, fully clothed. He looked at me expectantly and patted the floor beside him. He had gone into non-scary mode: his features showed almost no indication of his vampiric nature. 

Oh. Well, this did seem like something I could probably manage. I forced myself to walk forward, and when I was within arms reach he took one of my hands and pulled gently. I allowed myself to be maneuvered so that I was nestled into his side, and he wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into his side and stroking my arm with his fingertips. With his other hand he played with my hair- affectionately, soothingly. 

"I changed the parameters on your tracker, starting at 8:00 am tomorrow. I thought about removing it, but..." -he glanced at the thin anklet- "there are still some places that I don't want you to go."

I expected him to elaborate, but he lapsed into silence, playing with my hair absently as if we had all the time in the world. My breathing slowed, and I began to feel more relaxed. Finally I said:

"Such as?"

"Mmmm," he said. "Like outside of the country, or the inside of my office. Not that I think you could really manage either of those things anyway, but I've learned not to underestimate humans." His voice turned thoughtful. "Quite a lot of advantages lie in simplicity, as my kind are well aware..."

He twirled another finger in my hair. "But no adventures until tomorrow. I want you to stay in tonight, finish recuperating, alright?"

I nodded, wondering if this meant he was leaving soon. But he didn't seem in any hurry. We sat like that for a while longer as he continued to stroke me like a cat. After an indeterminate period of time, he leaned forward and pulled the shower door shut. Something about the dimmer light and the more closed environment changed things abruptly, and I began to feel anxious again. I glanced at the shower wall to my side-the one he had pressed me against, as he fucked me, while I wondered if I was going to die. I could still feel the ghost of his hand around my throat, I could still see the blood...there had been so much blood, an impossible amount. What had he done? Who had he killed? Did he really bring me in here just to soothe me, or was this going to turn into something else? My breath quickened and I felt renewed stirrings of panic. 

I heard him curse. He kicked the shower door open again and began to stand, and I scrambled to my feet, relieved that we were leaving. But his pointing finger filled my vision just before it tapped the tip of my nose.

"Sit." 

I planted my butt back on the floor and watched him walk away, wondering what the hell was going on. He disappeared out of my line of sight and I fidgeted nervously until he reappeared a minute later, holding a lighter and his pipe, which he had lightly packed. His emotional manipulation contained about as much subtlety as dog training, but that didn't make it any less effective. He stepped back into the shower with me and lit up, closing the door again as he sat down beside me. My fear dwindled to background noise as my spine straightened, and I stared at the pipe in eager anticipation. 

He chuckled and passed it to me, allowing me a few hits before extracting the pipe from my hand and setting it down beside him. Then he pulled me close to him, rubbing my back, resting his head atop mine. It was not so bad. He was pretty good at being less than monstrous, when he wanted to be. And I had developed a mild, mellow high that made me a little less concerned about everything. Eventually, he pulled back and tipped up my chin. I looked somewhere just below his eyes, trying to focus on his thick lower lashes. But then he glanced around, as if inspecting our enclosure, and my gaze unconsciously followed his- the tiles, the giant showerhead of which the entire overhead was comprised, the opaque glass of the closed door. He turned his attention back to me.

"Yeahhhh... it's a shower." He raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly, searching my face like he was trying to determine if I was convinced. I was suddenly distracted, however, by the tic-tic of claws on the bathroom floor. Lex noticed it too, and he kicked at the door again. It swung wide to reveal the dog in an almost comical state of confusion- his head cocked dramatically to the side, tail wagging hesitantly. 

"Jack!" Lex exclaimed cheerfully. "Would you like to join the shower party?" 

Jack wagged his tail a little more enthusiastically, and when Lex snapped his fingers and gave a low whistle, he bounded into the shower with no regard for personal space. I couldn't keep myself from smiling as the giant furball muscled his way in between us until he was laying half on top of me and half on top of Lex, and could not suppress a giggle when he began licking my face, thwarting my efforts to push him off me. Lex was scratching him all over and talking to him in the same indulgent tone anyone might use for a beloved pet, but it was in Vamp language. Jack finally settled-seemingly content-into a ridiculous position draped over the top of the two of us, his tail batting lightly against the shower wall. I shook my head, looking between the dog and the vampire in mildly amused bewilderment. 

Lex widened his eyes and poked at me playfully. 

"You think I'm a weirdo," he observed. I nodded, and the vampire smiled, flashing a great deal of fang. 

"Excellent. That's really the first step. You'll be in love with me within a week, I promise."

He pushed the protesting animal off the two of us and rose, offering me a hand.

"But now that the mongrel is here I really can leave. Come on."

He pulled me to my feet, but then released my hand and left the room with supernatural quickness. I picked up the pipe and lighter from the floor, knocked the ash into the shower drain, and shoved them into the small pockets of my skirt before getting out. Jack had paused in the doorway and was looking at me expectantly. I followed him into the living room, which was empty, but the door to the "office" was open slightly. The darkness of that room seemed eerie and unnatural, and I found myself squinting into it, trying to make out details. Then I jerked, when the vampire emerged from the inky blackness as if by magic. The door shut behind him, seemingly of its own volition.

He had what looked like an electronics bag slung over his shoulder, and he glanced at me and Jack as he walked towards the kitchen.

"I'm going to be gone for about three days. There's a list on your phone, of shit for you to do and buy while I'm gone. Other than that, you're responsible for entertaining yourself."

He paused as he neared the apartment door and looked pointedly at Jack. 

"You are on full-time babysitting duty. Do not leave her side. If she has so much as a scratch on her when I get back, I'll be holding you accountable. Are we understood?"

Jack looked from Lex to me and flattened his ears, then abruptly lay down and sighed, resting his head on his paws. 

"Good," said Lex. He turned back to me and smirked. 

"Aren't you going to kiss me goodbye?"

I hesitated- unsure whether or not he was joking, hoping that he was. 

"Come here," he said gently. I approached him, and he tipped up my chin until I was looking into his face. His eyes were black, but they did not seem unkind, somehow. I tried to unfocus my eyes, and he chuckled.

"You don't need to be so afraid to look at me, sweetheart. You're not a Ghost anymore...even if I can glamour you, I doubt I can do much more than stun you. I can't control you."

That might be true...but I'd been a vampire's puppet often enough to make eye contact with any living creature fraught with anxiety. 

"Here, I'll prove it to you. Look."

I brought my eyes back into focus and made direct eye contact, though it made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I didn't want to do this, but perhaps the sooner I did, the sooner he would leave me alone. I steeled myself for it, and felt a strange disorientation begin to creep over my mind. It felt as though someone were physically pressing on my brain, on my will, and it was a terrible suffocating sort of feeling. I tried to pull my eyes away and could not- in fact I could not move at all, other than my increasingly rapid intakes of breath that did nothing to assail the feeling of being smothered. I couldn't shake it, I couldn't ignore it: the only thing to do was fight. So I gathered that will, the will that it felt as though was pressed under a thumb and squeezed in place. But that will was bigger than a thumb, it was bigger than anything he was doing to me. Once I realized that, the rest was easy. I pushed back, with everything that I had.

My mind was freed instantly. I heard Lex make a startled sound and watched him take a few steps backwards, grabbing the bridge of his nose and shaking himself. And then he was laughing, grinning at me. 

"You see?" He seemed immensely pleased, and tipped my chin up again, looking deeply into my eyes. I stared into the dark pools with significantly less trepidation, though the sheer intimacy of it really bothered me. 

"I always want to see your eyes, Pieyla," he purred. "When you're terrified, when you're happy, when you're stoned...when you come."

I frowned at him. That seemed terribly invasive. Even if he couldn't glamour me, I would still be a lot more comfortable if I was looking at my feet. 

"Why?" 

He looked at me as though he thought the answer to that should have been obvious. 

"Because they're beautiful."

He could not have shocked me more if he tried. I guess I had been expecting an answer laced with menace- anything but the genuine appreciation his expression seemed to convey. He stroked my hair tenderly and brought his face closer to mine, our gazes still locked. I felt very strange, and vulnerable. Eventually it was just too much, and I tore my eyes from his, squeezing them shut and turning my face away. Soft lips brushed over my cheek, warm breath licked at my skin, and he ran his hands lightly down my arms before he stepped away from me. I just stood there- immobile, nervous, confused as ever.

When I opened my eyes, he was gone.