Heirot

She kissed him in a return. Her lips worked against his calmly at first, then more eagerly. She drew away for a breath, her cheeks flushing as she glanced away. “Oh, you don’t get lonely?” she asked him, her finger touching his cheek. “Hmm… I bet you do.” She tapped his face playfully.

She still looked tired, but color was returning to her cheeks now that she wasn’t using all her energy to heal people.

"I might get lonely," she admitted. "But, only one of us is fitting on that couch."

"Lie down. I'll watch you until you sleep," Vlad said easily, taking her shoulders and lightly pointing her toward the couch.

Tenele smiled as she went to the couch. She laid gently on her side, watching him. She scooted closer to the back of the couch until there was enough room for him to sit. "Watch me?" she asked him, covering her face from a yawn. She patted the couch. "Good night," she told him as she reached out to give his hand a squeeze.

Vlad took a seat next to her and ran his cool fingers across her forehead, combing them through her silver hair. Her hair felt warm and smooth, relaxing him. It was only then, by contrast, that he realized how tense he'd been. "Sleep well, my maiden girl," he murmured.

"Don't get into trouble..." she breathed out in a sigh, blinking her eyes closed. She smiled softly for a moment, before relaxing into the hard cushion of the couch. It wasn't long before she fell a sleep.

When Tenele was fast asleep, Vladimir glanced around the quiet office she'd been offered to sleep and took a slow, unnecessary breath. Watching her sleep was a pleasant type of boredom, but it did not motivate him to mimick the human activity of resting himself, as it sometimes did. The thought of sleeping in this place was so ridiculous he could have laughed. He didn't. He stayed quiet as he rose from his fiance's bedside and reappeared in the library next door, where he'd been instructed to spend his evening. He wasn't about to do that, either, so he walked to the window and studied the snowy landscape outside. He was a good ten feet up from the ground outside, so not much was immediately visible. He thought about the potential enemies that Sinead believed were approaching this shelter.

He thought about how difficult it would be to spot them through tiny, second-story windows in a building with no defensive architecture. No turrets or towers to spot or repel an attacking force.

Stupid bunch of Robes. They were going to get all these people killed, if they weren't careful.

He thought about roaming the compound, but his usual desire to explore was repressed by the sensation that with every foot he covered, the building was trying to climb through his skin, sizzle into his organs and veins. He ultimately chose to sit in a chair near the center of the room and listen to the quietness of the stone and books around him.

It was several hours into this task when he heard it. The sound was far too soft to be noticed by a human being, but he, of course, picked it up like someone was whispering the message into his ear. Boots on stone, very quiet, in the interior hall outside the library door. The scratch of dirt and leather against stone. The monks here would hardly make such a rugged effect with their soft, dainty house slippers they all loved to wear. Torchlight briefly warmed the crack under the library door, and then was gone.

"That's not suspicious," Vlad murmured, his lips twisting into a grin.

He thought of Tenele, with her wound from earlier, sleeping soundly in the next room. This was nothing he couldn't handle alone.

He went to the door and teleported through it. A dimly lit figure was disappearing around the corner up ahead. He was not dressed like a monk. The vampire smiled darkly and followed the figure on his stroll.

"Your mother ever tell you that you walk like a horse?" Virgil hissed to the man in front of him. He held the torch up higher.

"Your mother ever tell you that you look like one?" the other replied. "We're almost there..."

"Good, this Thar Pretty Party makes me want to vomit," Virgil muttered. "And not to mention they brought in reinforcements today, Merritt."

"Will you shut it?" Merrit replied, whirling on him. He put a finger over his mouth and then continued down the hall. They came to a staircase that led down. It spiraled far below even the ground floor of the complex to a sewer like structure. "Looks like we found it."

"This leads to the river that runs along side the monastery walls.... Only problem is the creature they locked down here to keep any intruders from coming through," Virgil muttered. "I say we leave that to the soldiers."

"We are the soldiers," Merritt reminded him.

"No, we are the scouts... We observe, they do. There ain't no way in hell I'm going to fight off some monster so those lazy soldiers can walk in." Virgil scratched the back of his head. "Let's unlock this thing and go light the signal."

Vlad tilted his head as he watched the men work. He stayed out of the way and observed them unlocking a gate. One of them seemed to have difficulty picking at the lock. "Want me to give it a whack?" Vlad suggested, putting a hand on each of their shoulders.

Virgil and Merritt looked at each other and then at Vlad before whirling on him and drawing their short swords hidden under their refugee clothing. "What?"

"Vampire..."

"Here? Impossible...."

"Back," Virgil commanded, poking at Vlad's chest.

Vlad cast the man a predatory grin and stepped, purposefully, forward until the tip of his blade barely sank into his skin. A thin rivulet of blood oozed from the wound. "Ooh, that reminds me," he said with a slow breath that was almost lustful as he caught the scent of his own blood. "I've been on a diet." His grin showed fang as a moved in closer and launched at his would-be opponent. Even prey was too fancy a word. This fool was a bagged lunch.

He took the scout all too quickly, drinking in his blood like a cold ale after a hard day, and then dropped him to the floor without ceremony, looking for his partner.

Merritt unlocked the door, shaking uncontrollably as he managed to rush through and close it behind him. He had to hold onto the door as he fell into a pool of water waist deep. There was a barred window at the top and the bottom of the door. He watched, hands gripping the bars as his friend was eaten in front of him.

His breathing came in deep heaving gags, and then it was accompanied by another pare of breathing behind him. A gargled sound.

Merritt froze, turning slowly to look behind him. His eyes lifted to the black shape standing in the water with him. It was tall and hard to see, but its body was black and deformed and glistened from what little light came through the barred door.

Merritt turned to scramble up and unlatch the door and crawl through, but sadly he never did. Before he could, the massive hand of the monster lurking in the sewer with him swiped down. Merritt uttered a scream, and blood splattered through the bars on the floor at Vlad's feet.

Vlad crossed his arms and watched the scout's little encounter. "Pleasure to meet you, friend," he commended the creature darkly. "Seems I'm not the first monster to look out for this hole."

A strangled voice drew his attention back to his victim, lying bleeding on the floor. "Not...alone...you're too late..." he snickered deliriously.

The vampire turned his attention to the stairs above as torchlight flickered down across the stone. "I heard it down here," someone was saying. More footsteps behind those, coming down the stairs, coming here.

Vlad stood. There wasn't much sense in porting away and leaving a drained body on the ground. That would look innocent as snow, no doubt.

"What in the world is going on here?" demanded a monk who came down first. They took in the sight of Vlad, no doubt with his garnet eyes glowing from his recent meal, and stopped short. The realization was almost audible as their eyes all trailed from him to the passed-out vermin on the ground near him. "You've murdered one of the refugees!"

"These men are scouts. I heard them, and pursued. They planned to escape this way."

"Scouts?" demanded a monk shakily, staying close to the others. "I see only one man, and he appears very much a victim."

Vlad was stunned by his own mistake. Must be the consecrated ground. You could dress up a vampire as human as you wanted, but a church was still pushing it. His nerves and his brain were doing doubletime to compensate. "They came this way to take the sewers out. One made it. The other one was...luckier," he avoided the temptation to smirk as he glanced at the one he'd drained.

"You are a creature of the dark," the monk said warily. "Why should we believe any of this?"

"As I said when I got here, I was chosen to protect you. I am an exception; a non-evil. I'm standing here, in this place, am I not?" He wasn't sure he meant the words, but they were a kind of truth, and the men seemed to consider them.

"We will need to...test your purity, if we are to believe this," one monk finally said, after conferring with the others.

"I have been tested on before," Vlad said mirthlessly, ignoring the confused looks they cast him in response. "Let's get it done with."

It was a long walk, with monks ahead and behind him, to the large room where they brought him. It was a...dear god, it was a sanctuary. He fought his revulsion at the place he'd been brought and walked reluctantly toward the pulpit as they led him.

The couch was old and hard and lumpy and while Tenele was not the fairest of maidens she couldn't claim to be comfortable. Her eyes drowsily fluttered open. She rolled onto her back and tried to sleep there, but now the beam of moonlight filtering in through the narrow window was hitting her right on the face. She contemplated on moving the couch... Or beating it into soft submission, but both required more energy than she was ready to give in her current half-asleep state.

Tenele slipped from the couch and grabbed the cotton robe next to the bed. She pulled it over the long winter nightgown she wore, wondering if she could talk her soon-to-be-husband into moving the couch for her. He could do it effortlessly with his pinky if he wanted too... Tenele smiled at the thought of calling him husband, and her eyes drifted to the ring she wore around her finger.

But, Vlad was no were to be seen, not in the library at least. She stood looking into the room, and for a moment she had the skeptic look of being tricked. She searched under the desk just to make sure, since he had a nasty habit of playing pranks on her.

Half a mind to go back to sleep, she instead pulled on her calf length boots and left the library.

The halls were lit with torch light, but quiet as the grave. She looked left and right, but wasn't quite sure where to go first to look for him. This place was huge and with Vlad there was honestly no telling.

As Tenele rounded a corner, so did Rosalie, the shy nun whom Vlad had helped - and terrified - the day before. She was carrying a tall stack of folded towels, which bobbed and shuffled precariously as she nearly collided with their guest.

"Oh, good morning," she greeted Lady Tenele, and kind of girlish excitement in her voice at meeting a Queen's Maiden in real life. "Did you rest well?"

To keep from sounding rude Tenele smiled at Rosalie, "Fairly," she told the young woman. "But, I traveling does that to me. I'm sure I'll sleep peacefully tomorrow night.... Tell me, have you seen Vlad... the vampire? He really is harmless, but has a tendency to go to far with his pranks and I think I might have brought him to a place where his sort of sense of humor will not be tolerated."