Precious

[Saiketsu]

Continued from here

The night had gone off just as promised. For the first time in ages, things were working out wonderfully. The two of them had left the house in less time than he had anticipated, taking less than fifteen minutes after they had both announced themselves as awake to each other. And despite the obvious issue that had taken place during the night, neither Damien nor Storm brought up the fact that they had been so unguarded to sleep in the same room, on the same bed. The terrors of dreams were forgotten as they rode through the city streets. Damien could even feel a smile pull at his lips when he had seen the dark blue SUV waiting for him in the garage port.

The first stop had been at an old friend of Damien\'s who had lived just outside the city, a dog breeder who had lived for a few hundred years already. The man was waiting for the excited couple with a litter of five young pups. They were all pure-bred Siberian Huskies, and Damien could smell it in their blood, something that made him look forward to the night. He, himself was excited; it had been many years since he had a dog for himself. And these dogs were loyal to the grave, and trained to attack anything that threatened the master, something he found very useful in their present situation. They were all about eight or nine months old, trained to sit perfectly still with little exception.

He had ended up picking the best one, the most obedient and loyal, not to mention aggressive for the house, a beautiful silver and black female named Delilah who responded, as Damien wanted, only to French. And as he handed over to the man a wad of cash that would have taken any working class person a few weeks to make, he did so with a smile on his face. Delilah was his now, and even Storm seemed to be enjoying the idea of having a companion with her during the daylight hours.

The second stop, of course was a pet store on the outer limits of the city, one to get the things that Delilah would need; food, a bed, a leash. Delilah had spent the car ride with her tongue on the surface of Storm’s smiling face, something that made Damien smirk, even as the dog barked a piercing “ruff” every now and then before returning to her smiling pant.

“Come on,” he had said, “we’ll be in and out of here within a few minutes and you can play with her when we get home.” She blushed at the word that he had once forbidden her from using in his presence.” So they all had descended from the car, Delilah following closely on Damien’s heels and Storm after that.

“I want to go look around,” Storm had said quietly as they entered the store. He made a face but figured there was no harm in it, provided she stayed only among the live animals of the store. Which didn’t exactly seem like a problem for her. Yet by the time that Damien and Delilah had finished their shopping, he found Storm still lingering around the big-eyed, mewing kittens that were up for adoption.

“Storm, you ready?” It was a tentative question, one he hoped would be a ‘yes’, but knew that it wasn’t based on her wriggling fingers stuck in the cage of one of the kittens. Worse yet, the kitten was holding onto these fingers for dear life, as if Storm was its last hope, licking theme with a spiky little tongue that provided the cat’s affection to any human that dared get too close. Her expression was far too light for comfort, her eyes huge, as if suggesting that he should think that it were the most precious thing in the world that she had ever seen. He groaned internally. The vampire took a step closer to look down over her shoulder at the little beast, and sure enough it arched its back, tore away from Storm and started hissing at him with pointy little fangs. Storm only giggled.

“It looks kinda evil.”

“Yeah, but it’s cute. I love him.”

Damien sighed, taking as step back in order to allow Storm to get her fingers licked and nibbled on all over again. He was going soft. “You really want him?” He asked reluctantly, afraid of the answer. But the memory of last night and her inability to recover on her own, and the guilt of dragging her through the mud for the sake of his plans overwhelmed his good decision-making skills. Yet Storm only looked at the vampire with an expression like she was being put on the spot, one that said ‘what? I was just kidding, you know, well not really, but what?’. It made him sigh and give her a flick of his hand, saying “Go off and pick out the stuff he needs. A litter box and what not.”

“You’re not serious.” She stated with a tone that tried to hide the excitement. She’s a terrible liar, always has been, he reflected to himself.

“Well,” he began, justifying himself in his own head as well as to her, “considering that Delilah’s not there for fun, I’ll be sleeping all day and this poor kitten,” he threw a glance down at the mewing beast, “is never going to be the same now that it’s had you in its life, we might as well get him.”

The sound that had made its way out of her throat had deafened his highly sensitive ears for a second as she nearly tackled him out of excitement. There was a brief moment of confusion on his end where he could feel a touch of anger at being so approached rise in him. Yet before it had bloomed into a full emotion, she had gone darting around the corner for the things to take care of the little cat. With another sigh, he looked down at the cat, which only mewed back with its huge eyes on his. Damien rolled his eyes.