His Stoic Mask, Her Bleeding Heart

I let the wool blanket slip from my shoulders as I stepped out of the sunlight and into the shadows of Matthias' back rooms. This area of the house had been generally unused during both Terrence's reign and James', and judging by the emptiness of the small room I stood in, it was the same for Matthias' rule. Kai kicked my blanket aside as he followed me into the darkness, his amber eyes nearly incandescent as he scanned the cramped space.

"Do they never keep watch?" he asked in a growled whisper, his eyes flashing toward me.

"Probably not," I responded as I started through the room. "There's never been much of a need for it."

"And yet, here we are," the werewolf rumbled as he followed. "And yet, there you were when you came to free Elyria."

I nodded. "Some vampires aren't big on learning from their mistakes."

"Think they have too much power to be in any danger, eh?"

I answered with a soft chuckle, thinking of the general attitudes of this mansion's three recent owners. He was more correct than he thought he was. "Don't forget the wealth. That means immunity to them, too."

"Ah, of course," he said, laughter somehow lightening the roughness of his wolfish voice. "How could I forget?"

Neither of us spoke again as we crept through room after room, having yet to see or even hear another soul. We reached the more used area of the house after a moment, soon stepping into the vast entrance hall at the front of the house.

"Jesus," Kai mumbled, his voice even quieter now that we'd reached a usually highly trafficked area. "We might as well have walked right through the front door. I bet it wasn't locked, either."

I frowned, stopping in the very center of the hall as I scanned the area. "It's odd, isn't it?"

"Like they're luring us into a trap," he agreed, parroting my thoughts.

"Or maybe he really is that arrogant," I reasoned as I started for the stairs. "It really wouldn't surprise me."

"We should go," he said, though he tiptoed after me up the stairway. "He might just be a stupid, cocky prick, but I wouldn't bet on it. This obviously isn't safe."

"So?" I paused near the top of the stairs and glanced back at him, my voice lowering even further now that we were only feet from the quarters of the many vampires who dwelt here. "We came here to kill them, anyway. We came here prepared for a fight."

"And a fight you shall receive," came the smug voice of Matthias, popping the bubble of false safety I'd imagined around myself and Kai. I turned toward the man, who stood at the opposite end of the hall, his arms crossed and his lips curved in a smile. "But you won't be doing the killing here; I will."

"Just you?" I asked, climbing the last few steps so that I could stand on the same level as Matthias.

"Of course not," he answered, his smile growing. "I have an army. Why not use it?" Right on cue, the doors were thrown open all along the hallway, and a group of vampires emerged from each until a swarm of the damned creatures had formed, completely blocking my view of Matthias. "Good luck," I heard him call in a mocking sing-song; and then, his army charged.

"Run," I said to Kai, the consonants tripping over one another as I hurried to get the word out. I shifted into a more aggressive stance and didn't dare to look away from the approaching crowd. "I'll hold them off until you're out the door."

"You run," the Were scoffed, and I risked a glance at him to find that he stood at the ready, his pose promising the same violence that mine did. "I can hold them off." But by then, they were on us, and Kai and I leaped into the fray without hesitation.

We would have to run, I realized as I dipped beneath a punch only to be knocked forward by a blow to the back. I fell against the man in front of me, and he slammed me against the wall so hard that I thought my spine might've snapped. We were too outnumbered. We would have to run, and we would have to run soon.

The man bared his fangs at me and bent his head toward my neck, preparing to rip right through it, but he was suddenly jerked backward. I fell to my knees, rubbing my back, and watched as a massive brown wolf chomped the vampire's body straight in half with its equally massive jaws. I could marvel at the spectacle for only a moment, however, as another pair of vampires fell on me a second later.

A rapid punch to the nose sent the first woman staggering back, momentarily disoriented, and the second latched on to my wrist before I could withdraw my arm. I swung her around, ramming her back against the wall as hard as I could, and she let go surprisingly quickly. A man's fist was headed for my face even as the girl fell to the floor, and I blocked it with my bleeding forearm, then retaliated with a punch to the stomach that was hard enough to knock him back into the crowd of vampires behind him. But no sooner had the man disappeared into the swarm of bodies than another wave of men and women came rushing at me, too many to ward off now.

"We need to go," I called to Kai, wherever he might have been, already backpedaling down the hall. "Now!" I was only a foot from the stairs when a man was suddenly on me, his teeth in my throat and his hands on my back. He held me to him, his grip so tight that I couldn't break free no matter how hard I struggled. Another man followed suit, biting into my wrist as I tugged at the first man's hair in an attempt to pull him away from me. A woman was the next to add to the pile, her teeth sliding into my already-bleeding arm. Shit, I thought as the combined weight of the three vampires sent me falling backward. They fell with me, the first man lying across me to keep my body pinned down and the other two vampires tightly clutching my arms and tearing through my wrists with their teeth.

The scent of my own blood filled the air, heavy and cloying, much like Elyria's tended to do. But just a droplet of her blood was poignant to a vampire; my blood was different. The smell was only so strong because so much of it was leaking from my veins.

Is this how she felt? I wondered, the sharp pain in my wrists and neck somewhere at the back of my mind as I thought about her, about her beautiful face and her melodic voice. Is this how she feels every time?

I lurched back into reality at the sound of a sharp yelp from Kai, only now remembering the cold blood against my skin and the amount of danger we were both in now. Guilt struck me, regret for ever having gotten the werewolf caught up in all of this, but I pushed it aside quickly.

I thrust my arms forward and knocked the two offenders at my wrists back, and I dislodged the man ripping relentlessly at my neck with a knee to the stomach and a rough shove. They started toward me again almost instantly, their faces sticky and red with my blood, but I was already on my feet. I could feel chunks of skin hanging in gruesome flaps from my neck and arms; I could feel the blood still slowly leaking from the gashes their fangs had made. But I pushed the sensations aside with my pain and bared my teeth in a snarl.

I caught a woman by the arm and pulled her to me, tangling a hand in her hair. A man reached me next, but I sent him backward with a kick to the stomach as I tore the woman's head from her body with one clean jerk. I shoved her ashen corpse aside, and the next two reached me, eager to start tearing at me with their teeth. I let one get a mouthful of wrist, then punched him in the side of the head hard enough to knock him out cold. He slipped away as the other vampire slipped past the arm I'd raised in defense and landed a powerful blow to my chest.

I hit the wall with a grunt, and the man was quick to follow me back. His hand was a blur as he moved quickly for my throat, but I caught his wrist and swung him around, slamming him face-first into the wall. I did it a second time, this time making sure his head took the brunt of the collision, and he crumpled to the floor, out just as his companion was.

A pair of hands gripped my shoulders from behind, and I was suddenly sailing into the crowd of vampires that still waited at the end of the hall. It didn't seem like we were making a dent in their numbers, even with at least two dead and another few unconscious. I was caught by a female, who grinned nastily down at me as she took hold of my arms and spread them wide, pulling as hard as she could in either direction. I let out a soft cry as one of the limbs popped free, quickly thrusting my head back and into her face before she could do the same to the other arm.

She was knocked only a step backward, refusing to release my arms, so I whipped my head back again. There was a crack and a grunt, but still, she didn't let go, and two men were already in front of me, their fangy smiles threatening violence. I jumped up and tried to kick out at them both, but one of them just sidestepped my foot, and the other casually grabbed my leg. The woman tightened her hold on my arms, a low growl rolling like thunder in her throat, and the man began to pull on my leg as hard as he possibly could as the woman pulled my body in the opposite direction.

Pain shocked through me from all over – from my legs threatening to pull free, from my tattered throat and wrists, from my already-dislocated shoulder. It was already blinding and still steadily increasing.

Would I make it through this? Was this it for me? Would my demise be so pathetic?

"Eli!" I heard Kai cry from some distant place, his monstrous voice choked in a sob of pain. "Eli!"

Kai. I'd forgotten about Kai.

This wouldn't be just my demise – it would be his, too. And all because I thought we could take down an empire on our own. All because I didn't have enough faith in Elyria to let her handle this on by herself.

No, I growled in my mind. No. I won't die here, and neither will Kai.

I lashed out with the leg that still dangled limply in the air, catching the vampire at my feet in the jaw with the sole of my boot. He instantly relinquished his hold, and my body dropped to the floor, the sudden weight of it dragging the woman down with me. She tried to stand immediately, but I braced my feet against the floor and sprang backward, pinning her between my back and the nearby wall. She made an ugly sound at the collision, her hold on my arms loosening, and I quickly tore myself from her grasp. I spun, hitting her full-force in the face with my clenched fist. She fell, unconscious like the others I'd managed to overcome.

The man who had tried to break my leg and his companion came at me as I turned, and one of them managed to land a punch to my jaw before I could resist – payback for the kick to the chin, no doubt. He tried to get another blow in while his friend went for my throat, but I ducked beneath them both and rolled out from beneath their shadows. A swift punch to the side of the first man's head sent him to the floor, and the same worked for the second. It seemed that punching Elyria in the head to knock her unconscious had been pretty good practice.

A choked cry from Kai sent me sprinting through the crowd of vampires that had gathered around me, weaving between bodies and ducking beneath attempted punches as I did so. My dislocated arm hung uselessly at my side, and I gritted my teeth as the memory of it brought another surge of pain. For Kai to be reacting that way, something bad must have happened, something bad enough to turn him human; and if something was that bad, I was going to need both of my arms. How was I supposed to do this?

I found the werewolf near the stairs, soft cries of pain leaving his lips as a trio of vampire women worked his neck and stomach. The scent of wolf blood overwhelmed me for a moment, but I soon kicked the women away from him one at a time, each of them hitting the wall harder than the last.

I turned my attention to Kai as I absentmindedly threw a back kick at the vampire who'd drawn close to me, preparing to attack. I heard him fall, and I grabbed Kai's arm and pulled him to his feet. Blood was everywhere, deep gashes – almost fatally deep – covering his bare torso, his bare legs, his throat, everything.

"Come on," I said softly to the boy as I pulled his arm around my shoulder, my working arm around his waist. Another kick sent a woman flying backward, but another group of vampires was coming to replace her. "We need to go." He nodded numbly, and I started at a swift lope down the stairs, moving as quickly as my pain and his added weight would allow.

The group of vampires caught up with us just before we reached the bottom of the stairs, a quick shove from the foremost male knocking me off balance and sending us tumbling to the tile floor below. They fell on us then, like a pack of rabid dogs, teeth tearing into whatever flesh they could reach. Their goal wasn't blood, but pain, torture, eventual death.

Kai cried out beside me, lashing out with his arms and his legs as best he could in his weakened state, and I did the same, with the addition of sinking my fangs into the nearest vampire's throat and tearing through his flesh as deeply as I could. He fell away, and another man took his place, tearing into my cheek with his teeth. I screamed and shoved him away, kicking and punching even harder than before. I kept aiming for the head. I felt petty for doing so, like I was cheating by knocking everyone unconscious instead of actually fighting them, but wasn't this an unfair fight as things were?

Half blinded by pain, I continued until I'd cleared a brief path for myself, then pushed myself to my knees and sprang at the cluster of vampires over Kai's grunting form. I used my weight to knock them off balance, then quickly stood and pulled Kai up with me. He was barely conscious now, almost completely limp in my hold, and I feared the worst. If I was in this much pain, I couldn't imagine what he was feeling. And he could die from this. He could die.

"Kai, come on," I growled in his ear, running toward the door, dragging the helpless werewolf with me. "Stay with me." I heard the vampires behind me, their steps growing closer by the second, and I fought through the pain to put on an extra burst of speed.

My blanket lay by the back door where I'd left it, but I didn't have time for that now. I didn't even have time to turn the handle. With Kai leaning against my good shoulder, my functioning arm holding him tightly to my side, I had no choice but to use my dislocated shoulder to break through the door. It gave more easily than I'd expected, and I let out strained grunt at the new surge of pain in my arm.

We burst into the sunlight then, and my shriek echoed through the yard and down the alley behind it. Kai seemed to wake at the sound, suddenly bearing his own weight. He instantly shoved my body beneath his as he hunched over, blocking the sunlight as best he could. In this way, he shepherded me to the car we had parked behind the house. In this way, he repaid any favor I'd done for him inside.

He shoved me into the back seat and threw himself into the driver's seat, turning the key in the ignition even as he slammed the door shut. No one was following, but with our injuries, we both knew we didn't have time to waste.

He slammed on the gas, and I let my eyes drift shut, still feeling that first sting of the sun on my skin, more prominent than any of the other pains that I felt.

"You might have just saved my life," I whispered, peering at the silhouette of his face against the darkly tinted windows of the car. "Thank you."

"Shut up," he ordered in a growl, not once taking his eyes from the road ahead.

I obeyed, a small smile shifting my lips. You're a good man, I wanted to say, though I settled with thinking it to myself. Maybe Elyria has better judgment than I thought.

"Are we going to her apartment?" he asked after a moment of silence, though he still wouldn't look at me.

"Why would we go there?" I asked in return, my smile instantly vanishing, all semblances of good humor gone.

Finally, his eyes flicked to me in the rear-view mirror, his expression grim. "With our injuries, we'll both need to feed."

I wanted to argue, wanted to point out that werewolves didn't need to do anything for their Goddamn wounds except get a first-aid kit, but I settled with gritting my teeth again, keeping my thoughts private. This man had just saved my life, after all. And maybe I was wrong; maybe blood would help him. Or maybe he just wanted her comfort.

"All right," I answered at length.

He turned his gaze from the mirror, some of the severity leaving his expression. "Thank you," he whispered, and I could only nod distractedly.

What the hell was I getting myself into now?

-?-

"What the hell did you do?" Elyria screamed in my face, her voice husky. I'd only just entered the apartment, and she already had me pinned against the wall beside the door, her body so close to mine that the blood covering her was almost an aphrodisiac. But her bruised, swelling cheek, her bloody nose, and the bite marks and gashes that covered her body killed any arousal that her blood might have caused.

"What happened?" I whispered, taking in the sight of her face. I reached up to touch her cheek, but she jerked her head away.

"What the hell did you do?" she said again, only a bit quieter this time. Her voice caught as she repeated it once more – "What the hell did you do?" Tears welled in her eyes, and I frowned, gently pulling her hands from where they'd gotten a grip of my bloodied shirt.

"What happened?" I murmured, holding her wrists to my chest to keep her close.

"They took her, you jackass," she answered, her voice hitching as a sob broke through. "Matthias's men came, and they took Kyrianna." But her sorrow left almost as soon as it had come, and she thundered, "What did you do!"

"We tried to kill him," Kai answered from the doorway, still butt-ass naked after his transformation at the mansion. She turned to him, the ire in her glowing eyes hitting him full force, and he lowered his gaze. "And we failed."

She jerked her hands from my grip, glowering up at me now. "So this is your fault!" She raised a hand as if she was going to slap me, but she lowered it after a brief pause, closing her eyes as she collected herself. She opened them after a moment and took a step toward Kai, holding a hand out expectantly. "I'm assuming you drove here, so give me the keys."

"Do you think you're going somewhere?" the werewolf asked, his eyebrows raised in a cool challenge.

"Yes," she said, giving a little wiggle of her fingers as if that would magically pull the keys to her. "I'm going to save Kyrianna. Now, give me the keys."

"You can't go alone," I chimed in. "If the two of us barely made it out alive, what makes you thi-"

"God damn it, Eli!" she shouted as she spun to face me, her expression angrier than I'd ever seen it. "Why couldn't you just let me do this myself to begin with? Why couldn't you just let me do it my way? My way is so much safer. Neither of you would've gotten hurt, and Kyrianna would still..." She trailed off, and her jaw worked as she fought back the tears that welled in her eyes once more. "Just give me the keys," she whispered to Kai, holding her hand out to him again.

"Elyria," I began, resting a hand gently on the girl's shoulder, "you can't-"

"Stop it!" she screamed as she whirled around to face me again, her voice reaching such a high, harsh pitch that I was sure some glass had cracked somewhere in the apartment. "Stop telling me what I can and can't do! You tried that once already, and look what happened!" Her tears fell freely now, and I was sure that she would raise her hand to strike me at any moment. "Kyrianna could die, Eli," she whispered, her voice quavering. "She could be dead already. All because you thought you had to protect me."

The words stung, and the truth of them strung even more, but I wouldn't be put off so easily. "I still don't think you should go alone," I said as gently as I could. "Matthias is stronger than you think he is. He-"

"Stop," she whispered, her voice cracking, and the amethyst light of her eyes increased as she overtook me – as gently as she could. "Please, just stop." Her consciousness slipping into mine was an oddly erotic feeling, a part of her merging with me to make us part of the same being. I could have fought her; she might have even let me win. But there was no point in it.

"No, Elyria," Kai said gruffly, his voice even harsher than before. He was leaning against the door frame now, and I could tell that his wounds were taking a toll on him. "You need to stop." She scowled at him, her eyes still glowing much too brightly, but he didn't stop. "You're not going by yourself, and that's that."

Her jaw began to work again as she ground her teeth; I could hear them scraping against one another. "Fuck you both," she hissed after a moment, starting out the door. "I'll walk."

Kai caught her wrist and swung her around, slamming her back against the wall beside the door, right where she'd had me pinned before. His naked body pressed against her, and if the situation hadn't been so tense, I might have been jealous.

"I'll drive you," he told her in a low voice, his amber eyes narrowed in a glare. "You're not going alone."

"You're hurt," she argued, annoyed, though she didn't struggle against him. "Both of you. If you tagged along, I would have to protect you. Matthias would likely kill you both on sight." But her connection with me snapped suddenly, her consciousness leaving me in a rush, and I couldn't help feeling a bit empty.

"You're still not going alone," Kai said, taking a step away from her. His blood covered her front now, and hers covered his. I vaguely wondered if they found this as rousing as I did. "And I may be injured, but I still doubt you could get past me if I wanted to stop you."

She crossed her arms and said nothing to that, her eyes flicking between the werewolf and me. "Aren't you in pain?"

"Yes, a lot," Kai answered simply as I said, "Quite a bit, actually."

She sighed, holding a wrist out to each of us. "Drink, then. It'll help."

"All right," I said, and stepped past her wrist to sink my fangs into her throat instead. She said nothing as I drank, though, and Kai began to drink from her wrist after a brief pause. I bet he was jealous.

"You really shouldn't come, though," she murmured after a moment. "You could get seriously injured."

"Been there, done that," Kai answered dryly, then went back to her wrist.

I chuckled but said nothing, having nothing to add. I may not have liked that the guy was taking blood from my girl, but he really wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought.

Never judge a book by its cover, I guessed. Or by the woman it has its teeth in.