Breaking Dawn

[Saiketsu]

He stared confoundly at the wall, addled over what to do next. Yes, he had caught her in the crime, and yes, it would need to come down eventually, but what was the harm if it kept her appeased even for part of the day?

But it\'s my fucking house! Something in him found her act extremely intrusive. As if she hadn\'t thrown herself into his life enough already, no now she had to color on his walls too, giving him a constant reminder of her presense. Damien caught control of the reins before he spiralled down into that path. It wasn\'t right of him to think about Storm that way and he knew it. He gave himself a mental slap on the wrists.

His eyes traced the lines of the drawing. It did add a bit of interest to the kitchen. And it\'s not like it wouldn\'t come off when he wanted it to. And she didn\'t have anything else to do. Damien sighed.

"No, you can keep it up," he sighed defeatedly, shifting his hair around awkwardly. "Just keep it limited to the kitchen if you can, ok? And don\'t draw in anything else but pencil, alright? The landlord will kill me and he already turns the blind-eye for the blackened windows. I\'d like to remain here if I could."

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm was delighted, really, and the only thing that showed this was the bright blue in her eyes and the silly grin on her face. She almost laughed in her giddiness but controlled the impulse. The pencil shifted automatically to the \'drawing position\' as though readying itself for another endless episode of work.

"It won\'t leave this room, I promise." And with that she agreed to the terms of the compromise. Anything to draw freely. After admiring her sketch a little longer, she looked shyly at Damien before speaking again.

"Thanks," she barely whispered, turning back to her pride with newly kindled energy. The Akari could feel her heart dancing with excitement as she touched the pencil to the wall again, but not before throwing a cautious, backwards glance at the vampire.

"I won\'t bother you anymore, I swear." Storm smiled effortlessly and spoke with a carefree voice, her eyes never leaving the new lines she began tracing confidently onto the walls.

[Saiketsu]

He watched her begin again before he left, finding the action absolutely absurd. The vampire shook his head before he turned it towards the television, realizing that he left it on.

6:31 AM now. The day was going to drag. Knowing his luck, he would have a nightmare too. His body felt suddenly weary, too accustomed to going to sleep at the sun\'s command and if he focused enough he\'d certainly notice the strength of the pulling of the sun. But he still wanted to do so much! He wanted to look outside, to feel the air of the morning, to get extremely annoyed at the birds that always chirped right outside his windows. But the sun was rising and Damien could feel the rays of light hit the building.

"You wouldn\'t bother me, Storm. But once I go down, whatever you need from me is going to have to wait. Are you ok with that? I mean, now that you\'re all enrapt in your work?" His shirt was beginning to annoy him, as if it felt strangely uncomfortable now that dawn was breaking.

[The Cedar Witch]

The girl hardly heard him, and it took at least ten full seconds for it to register that he had actually spoken. But still she did not turn to him, and did little to acknowledge or even show understanding to what Damien had said.

"Mmhmm," was her only response, her attention acutely focused on getting the details of a flame in the eye of a crow. This could occupy her for hours, Storm didn\'t need anything else but the pencil. It had been too long, she was beginning to recognize that perhaps she should allow herself the luxury of letting things out of their cages from time to time.

The crow she was drawing became something else, as for what Storm wasn\'t quite sure. By now her hand was moving on its own accord and she hardly had control over what she was drawing. As if the thought suddenly occurred to her, the Akari spoke.

"Have a nice sleep." she did mean it, no matter how distracted she sounded. And really, she wasn\'t even sure if Damien was still standing there. But she knew that he\'d hear nonetheless. With that said, she fell silent to the quiet scrapings of the pencil on the white wall of the kitchen.

[Saiketsu]

The door clicked shut before her last comment, but the pale-skinned young-looking man heard it nonetheless. He paused at the door handle, about to open it again to appologize until he heard the very faint pencil scratches on his kitchen walls. And she\'s off.

Damien\'s feet dragged tiredly across the room, up to the window. He didn\'t have the chance to blacken it up again once he was done looking at the eastern sky, so he stood there feeling the intense heat of sun leak through the cracks in the window. He pulled the shirt up over his hands and pressed the duct tape, blankets and towels back into their appropriate spots, the heat of death pressing against his hands all the while.

This was nothing new to the vampire. Though he knew how the sun would affect him, he occassionally pressed his covered skin against the windows of his apartment as a form of punishment. The slightest, indirect rays which penetrated the thick clothing were enough to keep him in his place, to keep him \'living\' for a while longer, while also giving him the experience he needed in order to understand what she and many of their \'children\' had gone through many years ago. He suffered her pain on his own time.

The more he thought about this action, the guiltier he felt. She\'d hate him if she knew what he were doing, toying with the sun like this, but he wasn\'t exactly caring. Despite what anyone thought, he did have a mind other than Isabella, an existence to figure out for himself. Guilt began to subside as he fixed the make-shift sun-block. His hands throbbed and his body felt wearier than ever.

He stripped his shirt and found his hands to be red --nothing he didn\'t expect. The rest of his clothing came off just as easily, first the shoes, the socks, jeans, and his boxers. The only thing he kept on was the small pendant around his neck --Isabella\'s crest. Damien slid into his covers and lay there, fingering the necklace absently, something he was so accustomed to doing. Even through a thick net of thoughts which floated between everything he had learned during the night, Damien couldn\'t stop himself from drifting. Many times he fell in and out of consciousness, getting angry at himself for doing so without sorting something out before his eyes closed and his jaw went rigid for the last time.

[The Cedar Witch]

So much had happened throughout the course of the night, and the girl was relieved to have some time to herself. She could feel her body almost instantly relax when she felt Damien\'s consciousness drifting off and she was sure he wouldn\'t come out unexpectedly. Pausing in the middle of her sketch, she leaned back to stretch, rewarded with a frenzy of little cracks and snaps coming from her spine. Tilting her head from one side to the other resulted in the same noise coming from her neck. The stress of the evening had done quite a number on her body.

The Akari shifted her position on the floor, now about a quarter way around the kitchen, and looked behind her on the wall. She had drawn quite a lot for such a short period of time. Turning again to before her, she felt for the pencil and took it to the wall again. Storm had to remind herself not to sing so not to wake the sleeping vampire in the next room. She smiled softly, recognizing the fact that she felt safer then she had in quite a long time.

An extremely detailed tree sprouted from the white wall, the age evident with the massive width of the bark as well as the number of nots and scars the ancient thing had. Storm had to stand to continue the branches upward, and it got to the point where she needed to drag a chair over to the drawing to reach the ceiling, where the branches seemed to forever stretch on, unseen. She carefully climbed down from the chair in order to sketch out the roots of the tree, which effortlessly reached the floor.

Storm felt herself grow weary as she finished sketching almost half the kitchen. The day had passed rather quickly for her, and she felt quite productive. Almost subconsciously she reached out for a forest that was too far for her to obtain any form of energy from trees. Suddenly she became homesick for the comfort the trees provided, the seclusion of their thick foliage. The girl was terrifically out of her element.

I\'ll just rest my eyes, she thought, yawning as she lowered herself to the floor. Before she realized it, Storm had curled herself up into a ball and had drifted easily off to sleep.

[Saiketsu]

As the world spun and the sun overhead passed in its routine fashion and the hours smudged into one another, Damien slept uneasily. As he lay under his blanket, his jaw clenched tight, his lips pulled back into a painful sneer every now and again and the brows furrowed together in pain. A cold sweat broke out over his skin and his body seemed paralyzed from the neck, down.

His eyelids opened from a deep, heavy and painful sleep. The first thing his tired eyes saw was the pitched ceiling of a large tent. The boy blinked a few times before daring to move --pain when he pushed himself up onto the pillows surrounding him. Gray eyes focused in a swirling world in order to allow the nineteen-year-old to see the room around him. What he saw ripped the breath right from his lungs, his blood turning to ice in his veins.

He was laying in a luxurious bed of imported silk, the colors of a sunset. The sheets beneath him were stained and damp beneath his naked flesh. As he looked down, the young man saw stains of blood and passion. His blood. Memories of the previous night flooded his mind as he sat in the dirty sheets, his breathing becoming rapid and laborious. God help me! A scream caught in his throat and he found himself unable to move from the stained sheets tainted with the natural scents of his body. It churned his stomach to realize what had occurred and with whom. A shaky hand covered his neck only to find it crusted with browning blood and an extreme tenderness. The air passing into his lungs stopped and the lad doubled over in a crunching, sickening pain which accompanied the knowledge of the night.

At the far end of the tent, perhaps twenty paces off, a thick flap moved and a figure entered. The young man couldn\'t bare to look up, knowing in his heart exactly who it was. Her astonished voice flowed like the silk he found himself embraced in as she spoke across the room to him with the same luscious voice as the night before. And again his blood stirred sickeningly near his groin. "I\'m surprised to see you awake, dear lad. I fully expected you to sleep through the morrow."

She was a woman as beautiful as her voice made her sound. His eyes couldn\'t help but land on her and remain there as anger set his face to stone. Over spotless, pale skin, the young looking woman wore a luxurious robe-like cloth, something he expected to see on Roman royalty during the height of its Empire. It was red, golden, and brown, luxurious silken and worn extremely low on her chest and even lower on her back. The cloth bunched up at the inner elbows and was just enough to cover the essential womanly features. It was enough to make any man\'s blood boil with primitive desire. She had a powerful vortex of energy around her, one he didn\'t have to have any notable other-worldly powers to see, which caused her to walk with the air of a queen in control of half the world who wanted more. There was no embarrassment about her and she was simply and utterly alluring.

But the young man felt the primitive reaction of his lower abdomen that which made him sick to recognize that such a demon had touched him, affected him so. After all, he was a child of God, was he not?

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm could feel herself in the void again, something she ached to remain in but hardly found herself lingering for enough time. This was, perhaps, the only period of time where she actually rested without disturbance, but it was short-lived. The blackness of the nothing-world began to fade into a world of gray-scale, something unexpected.

She wasn\'t falling, but seemed to float down onto the ground on her side. Almost immediately she could smell the blood-soaked earth, but could do little to lift herself into a sitting position. The girl closed her eyes tight, hoping that maybe the gray would darken and she would slip into the void once again. But no matter how strong her psychic abilities became, she could never control her dreams. And that frustrated her.

There was another presence in the far corner of her mind, something familiar but no one she was in to mood to talk to. For now they remained far enough to leave the girl alone, and for that she was grateful. Very slowly and reluctantly she opened her eyes to the familiar battle-scarred ground before her. She\'d seen this place so often she was almost tempted to call it \'home\'. But lacking the attachment that most felt to their dwelling places. She sighed, wondering how long it would be before she had control over her body, but not exactly willing to rush it.

[Saiketsu]

12:00 PM.

Her pearly fangs gleamed in the torchlight, like a beacon of her demonic nature. Everything about her screamed of rich sophistication. Her blonde tresses fell loosely about her face, rolling over her shoulders and spilling down to the bottom of her shoulder blades, which the lad could plainly view as she turned even the slightest bit. Her hazel eyes watched him with a sense of pride which the lad could not exactly read correctly as she took the first few steps towards him, neither fast-pace nor earthly.

Anger rocked the boy\'s frame as he looked at the demon woman from his spot on the bed, trying his hardest not to acknowledge the \'spell\' she seemed to set out for him. "You... You wench! How could you! How... Oh God help me!" His words became indiscernible and impassioned, but her gaze didn\'t alter to fit his needs. Instead she laughed.

"Your God shan\'t help you here. Here, you are in a den of lions." The vampire had something in her hands which she dangled between her first two fingers as if she were playing with him. Once his head lifted to see, the young man saw his wooden cross and rosary beds which he had previously worn about his neck --and never removed. "Here, I am your God."

"You are nothing but a demon!"

"That\'s not what I heard you call me last night, dear." Her laugh was brisk as the boy ducked his head behind his hands, gripping at the roots of his hair. Anguish and rage flowed freely through him.

"You\'re nothing but a liar!" His attention turned and he began to pray again, too afraid to move his hands from his face. "Oh Merciful He, who dwells in Heaven, grace me with your mercy and safe me from this sinful creature!"

Her graceful stride had never stopped, but carried her to his side of the bed, the bottom corner. She seated herself at that point and reached out with an almost comfort-looking hand to grasp the blanket. Her expression was unreadable. "You\'re not with your men anymore. You needn\'t fake your devotion for their sakes.” Yet before the hand could land, the young man jumped up to avoid her entirely, standing feet from her in his nakedness. This, in turn, seemed only to earn him a pitiful look from the creature-woman, as if he were the one being absurd. "Do you honestly regret what you have done?"

He fumed at her insinuation. "What I have done? What I have done?! You... you\'re nothing more than a monster! A demon sent by Lucifer himself! I\'ve done nothing wrong, you filth!"

Instantly her face hardened and shifted to ice. She stood now to challenge him much like a man would do. "If I recall correctly, you were begging for my touch and my body by the end. Begging, Lord Guillaume."

“No—”

“— Pulling my robes from my body with aching hands and a hardened self pressed needfully against my thighs.”

“No –“

“—A virgin with his first real erection, his first taste of glory.” A taunting laugh that curdled his stomach

His voice became bold and his chest puffed as he stood before her. "Silence, you slut! I hope I live long enough to see God reach down and smite you and all your demon spawn!" Before the boy was even done with his spew, he saw the woman\'s open hand raise and make contact with his jaw.

The contact sent a blinding flash of light up both sides of his face as the preternatural strength broke Guillaume\'s jaw easily. He screamed in pain, and spun to the ground with the sheer momentum. The room beneath his hands and knees spun and toppled over itself as blood trickled down his lips and stained the earth. He gagged on it and his senses couldn\'t focus. Throughout every battle, this was the most intense pain he had ever felt.

A snake spoke to him, no longer the silky voice of a young maiden, but now the voice of a queen condemning a prisoner to death at the gallows. "You will never address me as such again. Each night you live through to see the morrow, it\'s because I allow you to. You live now for nothing more than my enjoyment. You\'ll leave your godly views behind you because here I am God and you are my humble servant."

The impact was something completely unexpected and there was hate burning in his eyes as he looked up at her. If he had the muscles attached in his jaw, Guillaume would have spit in her face. "That\'s what I thought." The demon woman smiled stiffly before drifting by him on the ground, crossing the room without a lack of elegance.[/B]

[The Cedar Witch]

Somewhere before the girl, feet materialized even though she didn\'t see anyone walk toward her. At least she could move now, that much was good. Very slowly, Storm rose herself up into a sitting position to address the one that looked down on her.

"I don\'t want to talk to you right now." the words came from her mouth without her consent, even though she felt ever syllable. It wasn\'t a command, more like a voiced desire that was a bit too timid in its nature. The cloaked figure scoffed, the Akari could feel hazel eyes examining her even as the other turned away.

"It is not your place to command me," the cloaked woman began to walk away, vanishing as though having somewhere better to be. Storm didn\'t dare admit that she was relieved as she stood. She began to look about her, examining the strangely washed-out environment. The surroundings seemed to be melting, and unusually she could not see any color. There was something dreadfully wrong, but the girl couldn\'t put her finger on what.

Before she had the chance to think about it, the scenery changed and she found herself instead in a grassy field. And it was too late before she recognized the battle field in it\'s former glory. One by one, familiar members of the Akari army appeared before her, tents growing from the ground and people appearing out of nowhere. Someone touched her right shoulder, a friendly hand, and the girl turned to him and smiled.

[Saiketsu]

Guillaume Toulouse watched her cross the room towards the corner of the room through which she first appeared. She stopped at a chest on a table, where she opened the lid and threw the cross inside, to Guillaume\'s dismay. There was no emotion to her as she began to fiddle around with jewelry in the wooden box, placing different pieces of gold around her. The fabric of the robe drifted farther down her back, and she didn\'t seem to notice this happen at all, neither did she try to stop it.

He, on the other hand, steadied himself and crawled to the side of the bed, onto the edge, where his eyes rested upon her frame without meaning to. A feeling pulled at his lower abdomen and Guillaume realized that he was staring at her as she readied herself for the night. He glared then, turning his eyes away from her. "God help me! I was a man of God before I went into this war! I was a man of God before you! Before everything!" His jaw ached from the effort of talking and he spit out blood onto the floor during his sloppy speech.

The voice which struck his ears was cold, but still alluring. "Tell me something, Guillaume deToulouse. Do you truly believe in God?" She still faced away from him as she placed a golden headdress onto her hair.

"Of cou-"

"Do you believe in God\'s will?"

"Of cou-"

She turned to him then, her face riddled with anger, something which almost made him feel inferior to her. "Then why is it so difficult for you to understand that God has sent you into this den of lions because he does not want you? Why can\'t you see that he sent you to me? That this is God\'s will? This is what God thinks of you! You are one of His dejected children!"

"Lies!"

She only smiled at him slyly. "Believe what you want. Why do you think I have taken everything from you? Your body, Your blood. Because He\'s not there for you. You are in my hands." Without another word she turned away from him and closed the lid of the box.

"You\'re a liar-- a demon sent from hell to tempt me to sin. And I was weak!"

In his sulking moment, he never saw her turn around to face him. His eyes looked up to see her smiling as she approached him, her head-dress atop her head perfect and the air of the queen of the damned returned to her. The robe was slipping down her body, the fabric clinging barely to her full bust, right near the woman\'s nipples. He noticed his body react almost instantly, his muscles becoming warm and the primitive rush of lust hover right near his manhood. Yet his eyes captured the fear he truly felt, for he was no match for such sorcery as the creature dropped the robe from her shoulders completely. "And how well do you enjoy the temptation of sin, Lord Guillaume?"

He could do nothing but stare at her in fury, indignation, and, yes even lust. His body reacted appropriately, a pleasurable fire dominating his lower abdomen as Guillaume\'s eyes looked her up and down on their own accord. Struggling against himself to hold onto his anger, a pulling feeling laced Guillaume\'s mind, as if she were in his head. He saw himself take her roughly onto the bed and seduce her, heard her calling his name in her ecstasy. In the tent, the woman approached him, air around him drawing him in. "No," he whispered as she stood not two feet from him, pressing herself against him. The lad moved on impulse, sensing the danger before him, backing up to the edge of the bed where he stumbled backwards. Her hands landed on his shoulders faster than he could see, pressing him farther onto the bed and still applying enough pressure to keep him under her control. The images came faster towards him as the creature ceased the pressing and decided to climb smoothly on top of his body. Terror shook his body and chills broke out along his skin as he found her eyes void of any hint of lust. Memories of the previous night flooded his mind and Guillaume found himself with the urge to attack her, to push her off, yet her small hands pressed into him with accuracy and precision. His innards churned and writhed in a disgusting mixture of pain and pleasure as her body came down on top of his man hood, the flesh of her upper thigh barely touching his body. It drove him mad, and his groin began to ache with desire for her, hardening against her cool flesh.

[The Cedar Witch]

"How long have you been awake, Storm?" the young man with friendly chocolate eyes asked as he sat by the girl\'s side. She shrugged, turning away to watch the men prepare for the oncoming opposing flanks. They were roughly a day off, and reinforcements were well on their way. But the Akari-girl doubted that they would arrive in time.

"You know I rarely sleep," she replied in a low voice, scanning the sparring matches and groups of men sitting around camp fires. To tell the truth, the anxiety of her first major battle had kept her up more then the unwillingness to sleep. She sighed heavily, half praying to the gods to give her a spirit form in time for the battle. The young man beside her leaned forward, trying to insert himself into her field of vision.

"Hey," he said softly, a smile tugging on his face. "You\'re worried about tomorrow, aren\'t you?" there was a chuckle coming from deep in his chest and Storm turned her head quickly to face him.

"I, unlike you, have no spirit form--"

"That you know of," he interrupted, pointer finger in the air to accentuate his comment.

"Yes, but that\'s hardly reassuring." she rolled her eyes and continued to study the men a little ways off.

"I\'ve seen you fight, Storm, and you\'re better then half the boys here." He grunted as he stood, and the girl\'s eye followed him, shaking her head.

"But what if it\'s not enough? We\'re outnumbered." she half whined in dismay and frustration. He held out a hand, becoming her to stand with him. She took it reluctantly, pulling herself to her feet.

"Don\'t worry so much. I\'ll look out for you, not that I think you\'ll need it." he grinned that silly grin she was so used to seeing lately. It had taken them quite a lot of effort to get this far, and the pain of loss had faded in him enough to make nights without his late fiancé remotely bearable. But what about her? She was bitter, that much was certain. But the girl didn\'t even know what she was fighting for anymore.

The sky darkened unnaturally fast, becoming night when it was just barely morning, as if the memory had switched to fast forward. The Storm that was dreaming the dream and the Storm that was living the dream had no connection to one another. And the dread that the dreaming-Storm felt for the next event could do nothing to impact what the living-Storm did. Either way, the girl found herself laying on the cold, hard ground beneath angry stars that glared down without mercy. Dreaming-Storm didn\'t want to see this, and did everything in her power to pull away, but it was to no avail.

[Saiketsu]

"Wench! You\'re no temptation to me!" The cold-blooded beauty simply smiled at his quivering body.

"And exactly how strong do you think you are against me, boy?" Her smile never faded as she leaned down onto him, adjusting her hips in the process to make his manhood throb as it faintly touched the outer edge of her core. Her lips landed greedily on his, breaking through any defense he had, yet Guillaume refused to go down so easily, deciding to bite down on the cool tongue of the vampire woman. She withdrew for only a moment but her lips didn\'t leave his. A searing pain erupted in his mouth as she forced his mouth wider with hers and bite down ferociously, scoring warm blood which she drew out faster and faster until Guillaume could no longer feel any of the pain she inflicted on him. Something dug into his back causing him to yelp in pain. A similar pain erupted on his chest as he ventured a look down. Her talon-like nails dug into his flesh and red liquid was seeping out of the marks.

His yelps of pain became much more than that as more blood flowed from newly opened wounds. As his screams came, the woman hardly blinked in her path. Her cold, blood-stained lips left his, but trailed down to his jaw line, causing another wave of nausea and desire to rise in him once the pain settled. Without meaning to, his lips parted again and a moan escaped them which moved quickly through the sounds of rustling blankets and crickets of the night into the woman\'s ear. Her kisses and licks slow as they moved down his throat, trying for the same reaction. Again and again, Guillaume\'s lips parted and gave her what she wanted, each time her movements become slower and more torturous.

Forgetting his nausea to relieve his pain elsewhere, Guillaume gripped onto her hips slowly, fighting against himself again and groaning with the effort. He slid into her with aggravating success, her hips shifting down to allow him access. With his first thrust, the woman faltered in her smooth pattern, caught off guard. And if Guillaume heard correctly, she actually moaned softly too.

The woman leaned in to his ear again, her blonde tresses falling softly over her shoulders, skimming along his neckline. "Yes," she hissed sensuously and she licked at his skin and dried blood. Guillaume thrust into her harder, trying for the same reaction, a smaller wave of disgust rising, which was instantly wiped out by his next thrust, harder, and the next one. All that mattered was the desire overwhelming Guillaume\'s body for the succulent oyster that was her core. But the harder he pushed himself into her, the more heat washed over him, the less the woman reacted the way he wanted her to. "Yes," she breathed, the voice of a snake again, but this time it was alluring to him. All that mattered was the next thrust; he could feel himself beginning to peak, beginning to want her there, beginning to need her there. She laughed quietly in his ear, her voice barely faltering as he sweat below her in his effort to make her climax as well. "Virgins do it the best. They don\'t get caught up in themselves." Something pressed softly and wetly against his ear as she spoke, small licks and caresses. “The first erection is always the best one to taste.” With an evil laugh that drove him higher into him with a desperate grip and a sickened stomach, the woman’s body went rigid, and Guillaume couldn\'t make her move but he couldn\'t find it in himself to stop his own motion, not this close anyway. "They taste better than any experienced man I’ve had."

At her words, the boy felt a strong grip on his skin as he let loose inside, peaking up between her thighs. The woman opened her mouth to smile at a moaning Guillaume, displaying a mouth of sharpened teeth and two elongated canines in the gums which sloped to a sharp point. With a speed far faster than the lad\'s eyes could follow, the two fangs sank into the soft, vulnerable flesh of the base of his throat.

A scream broke free from his lungs faster than he could form it. His body fought her, but her talons kept him subdued. Pleasure mixed with anger and pain course through his body as his back arched and his hips worked more vigorously. He no longer felt himself inside of her, but rather invading him from everywhere: the air, the bed, his own blood as it was being drawn out. It made him nearly scream. He could feel his body growing cooler and acting without knowledge. His short nails clawed at her, but the familiar pressing of her body held him, even while she maneuvered her body to take full advantage of his climax. Her lips lapped at the blood flowing freely from his neck, and a white light began to numb him. The room spun again and his senses faded, but his heart beat wild. Blackness over took him and he found himself staring up at the same ceiling he had first seen this night, wondering: Is this death?

[The Cedar Witch]

In her dream, Storm was sleeping. Dreaming, in fact, making the whole ordeal a hell of a lot more confusing. Fortunately for the one observing this memory, she was not seeing exactly what her dream-self was viewing. It was as though she was watching a movie, a horrifically accurate retelling of her past.

Wake up. She whispered to herself, watching helplessly as the dream-Storm tossed and turned, gritting her teeth in pain or extreme discomfort.

Wake up, come on, wake up. The girl didn\'t want to see this again and she was beginning to become a bit desperate. The dream-Storm cried out, suddenly, as if struck by a sword. The man near her stirred in his sleep, rubbing his eyes groggily and peering at the girl with confusion.

No, you idiot. Go back to sleep!

"Storm?" the young man whispered, gently rocking the shoulder of the girl next to him. She flinched away from him, still deeply in slumber, and snarled.

"Storm, it\'s me. You\'re dreaming. Wake up. Come on now, I\'m not going to hurt you." the worried voice cooed, trying to rouse and calm the girl at the same time. He reached out with both hands this time, now kneeling over her, and shook the body of the sleeping girl.

"Storm, wake up!" he spoke with mild agitation, but for her sake and not out of his own aggravation. In barely the blink of an eye, the half-sleeping Akari-girl had the other on the ground. Her hands were at her throat as she glared at him with sickly yellow eyes. The younger Akari sputtered, fighting for oxygen and struggling against the one who had pinned him to the ground.

"Storm! It\'s me, Gabe!" there was the slightest bit of fear in his voice as he broke into his spirit form--something with powerful white-feathered wings. In an instant he overcame her, spinning the girl around so that her hands were behind her back.

"I\'m not trying to hurt you, just wake up." he said through grit teeth. An inhuman screech erupted from her throat, something that surprised even Gabe. Involuntarily he released her, which was a mistake. Now free, the girl whirled around, teeth barred and strangely pointed. Her eyes shown yellow in the darkness and she looked upon the man as if he had offended her beyond forgiveness.

[Saiketsu]

Before the darkness dominated Guillaume\'s senses for another night, he felt the strangest of sensations, like the prickling of the hair on the back of his neck. Her teeth released him and he groaned audibly, unable to move anymore. His body felt as though it was made of iron and it almost hurt him to have her leave. The room spun and he felt the woman\'s lips travel up his neck, felt the teeth nip at his ear lobe, and heard her feathery voice lull him to sleep: "Not even close, darling."

His body shut down for yet another night with this demon, but not before the eyes captured the beautiful lass regaining her composure, her hazel eyes bright with the warmth of life. She smiled and Guillaume faded into the blackness of unconsciousness.


The vampire didn\'t realize he was in the process of gasping for air as he sat up in the sheets, his body shaking with the anxiety of the day\'s dream. Damien covered his mouth with both hands and jammed his eyes shut, stifling the emotion connected to it as it came out in cool air from his dead lungs. As typical, once the urge to push his pain out through his throat faded, the vampire lowered his arms, bracing himself on the bed.

The old wound on his neck pulsed dully like a curse and a reminder, and as Damien instinctually turned his head to the left he was only half surprised to see Isabella not sleeping next to him. His gray eyes lingered on the spot where she could have slept had she been alive, remembering that he was Guillaume Toulouse nine hundred and nine years ago, a human laying in a demon\'s bed. Damien\'s hand moved slightly as he shifted his weight in order to touch her place in his bed solemnly. Nothing of her existed in this apartment, save for her poor fledgling and the crest he wore about his neck on a thin gold chain.

Damien shifted his legs out of the sheets and stood up warily. It wasn\'t a dream he particularly liked to relive; the first experience was enough to last him a lifetime, yet Damien still had it as a regular in his cycle of rotating dreams. But at least Isabella was there, and if that were the only way he could see her again, then so be it. He was perfectly able to grit his teeth and bare it now.

The more he thought about it, his modest virtues made him smile. He had been so devastated when Isabella had forced herself upon him, but how easily he had dominated her without her psychic help so shortly after his death. The thought of the righteous Guillaume who had almost completed his training for the church and chastity made Damien smile, as an old man would as he reflected upon his wild and outrageous childhood. The vampire dressed in clean clothes quickly enough in his thoughtfulness. Black jeans, a dark green shirt with some ridiculous logo, and the same pair of shoes. Before he opened the door to the living room, Damien remembered to tuck the crest into his shirt.

He found the Akari on the floor of the kitchen which was covered in her work. Damien sighed as he stepped carefully around to inspect his walls, not exactly knowing what to think. He saw Storm sleeping and his blood ran cold and his mind raced. "Storm!" he breathed quietly. The vampire was tempted to shake her awake, to free her from her prison of sleep, but thought twice. If she had decided to wake up violently, there was no way for him to maneuver in the kitchen\'s space. He backed away slowly and said her name louder, remembering the corpses in the field of blood and the tickle of Laurent in his brain from the blood she had given him days ago, and Damien wasn\'t exactly eager to witness the results of her dreaming state again.