"I don't know you," Helia said, as if to assure herself she was delusional. "But you sound and feel like Stone, except for your dark magic." Mention of his brother's name eased a purr out of his lips that vibrated against her neck and had him opening his jaw to pant her scent. If he didn't focus on that, he'd return to the idea of sinking his fangs into her soft flesh. "Are you Ghost?"

Ghost froze on his name for only a moment, sifting through his dreams of Stone until he remembered some of the first words his brother had said to her. Stone had mentioned Ghost once, and Helia had remembered. Such attention to small details had him trailing a hand up the side of her face and cradling her chin as he pressed his cheek to hers once more.

"Yes, Helia Cinder." Ghost spoke the words against the edge of her lips, grazing their side with the barest of touch.

"I-I see," Helia said into the bricks, her arms trembling under his hand as he ran it down to her fingers but not at all in fear. The scent around her was quite similar to Talamayas when he thought too hard. Helia was trying to piece together his existence and reconcile it with Stone's. "Stone called you his other half." It was a question, though not worded with the normal inflection, leaving him open to remain silent.

Ghost didn't want to be though. For the first time in his life, he craved to speak only so that it would illicit more of Helia Cinder's sweat cadence. "Stone and I are two sides of the same coin," Ghost did his best to explain, though it was difficult. "Though the void has temporarily severed our connection, within, we are one."

"Not following," Helia ground out, mostly in frustration at lack of understanding but not much for her current situation. After she'd learned who he was, her tense body had relaxed into his, softening under his fingers and waiting patiently for this to make sense. It was so pleasant to have her slightly shorter form curled into his chest that he closed his eyes to soak it in as he spoke.

"While Stone and Ghost are my physical manifestations, within, there is only one mind, one life force. I see and feel as Stone does, though with our damaged connection, we do not share thoughts and only one of us seems to be able to maintain consciousness at a time."

Helia tilted her head as she processed, crawling a hand up the bricks as she put the words together. "So you're saying that you experience everything Stone does." The words came out tightly, and Ghost knew why. "Even..."

"I can recall every line of your pale skin that you revealed, yes," Ghost whispered into her neck, sliding his lips down to the hollow between her throat and shoulder. "Recall every gasp or moan to my touch, each roll of pleasure through your body as you sat on my lap and wound your fingers into my hair."

"Thanks for clarifying in such... detail," Helia squeaked the words, and Ghost chuckled from her nervousness. Aside from with Stone, Helia was so composed and not easily ruffled. "Do you have your memories?" The words trickled from her lips, the tepid fear saturating her thick aura of magic as she started to fully understand what his presence meant.

"Yes, this vessel retains my memories." Ghost tried to word it as passively as possible.

"And you don't want to kill me?" The words came out in a rush that hiked her heart rate as she contemplated the compromised position she was in, pinched between a vampire assassin and a brick wall with his fangs lingering close to her neck.

"I've said this many times, Helia Cinder. I will not harm you. I know you fear what Stone will become with his memories, but he is just as gentle with or without them. I did not spend my life slaughtering your kind as you fear, and though I am capable, I do not imagine tearing out mage throats. I normally do just as Stone does, read books, explore, and sit around. My function as my master dictated was to scout mostly, protect his back if he fought, yes, but I was never utilized as an assassin to take out any of your kind."

Though a lot of words, they were what Helia needed to hear, and the slow exhale of breath had her sinking against him. It took only that much more contact for Ghost to wrap an arm around her, grip her chin, and angle it so his lips fit snugly against her throat. The thrum of her life pulsing under his lips was near overpowering, but the shudder that ran down Helia's body grounded him. Ghost could be dying and he would never take blood from an unwilling human.

Not as they had used him and Stone at the slave farms.

"Are you going to bite me, Ghost?" The words came from Helia's lips shakily, his name the most difficult for Helia to force from her lips. How Helia still feared him.

"I would never take from you without permission, Helia Cinder. I am just as Stone is, at your service for whatever you desire." The words didn't calm her heartrate much, but she did turn, pushing his arm out of the way and stepping over his leg to look him directly in the eyes. Helia took him in, exploring his face with fascination before running her eyes up and down his muscled form, lingering between his legs for an embarrassing moment before she found his eyes.

"I see neither of you favor real clothes." Helia's words scathed his ears with the chastisement, but the smile that lifted her lips eased pleasant warmth through him. "You drink blood then." Helia managed after a moment, and Ghost nodded gently, afraid that any quick movements would shatter the fragile peace between them. Face to face with a grand mage and a vampire assassin was not the same as him holding her against the wall. "And you want mine?" Helia managed the last few words with an eyebrow tilted up. "Even after all the messed up shit I said to Stone yesterday?"

"Your fear is justifiable. Stone understands as I do."

Helia's eyebrows crunched, and she crossed her arms. "And your master, is he going to nail me up on some stake and burn me alive for stealing Stone?" The exact wording had Ghost's smile showing too much fang for Helia's taste. The amusement pursed her lips, though she couldn't know the irony.

Talamayas loved burning people alive.

"Despite not having his memories, Stone and I share a mind when it comes to how we feel of such things. As he said, if my master would force me to harm someone I care deeply about, they would not be worthy of my service. My master will be unable to lay a hand or magic on you once he learns that you've saved Stone from the void. I as well as my master owe you a debt we will gladly repay. Please rest assured that you are safe, Helia Cinder."

"Real nice guy, this sire of yours?" Helia asked absentmindedly.

"Master," Ghost corrected more on reflex than anything, and Helia tilted her head as she tried to understand him. "My sire is dead, as he should be." The darkness in Ghost's eyes as he thought of Stone brutally murdering Laros gave Helia pause, but she understood the hatred was not for her.

"I... don't think I'd be comfortable giving you my blood," Helia said quietly, taking a small step back toward the building behind like the words would have him pouncing on her.

The lack of trust pained Ghost, but he'd done nothing to earn such from her. Neither had Stone. They were vampires, dangerous dark creatures to humans, more so to a grand mage. The best Ghost could do was sink into a crouch, kneeling in the alleyway as he dropped his head. With an uplifted hand, he beckoned for hers, and she rubbed her palm at first but gave it. Ghost touched her fingers, delicately as he would a baby bird, and lay a kiss on her knuckles as he kept his eyes low. Just the contact sent pleasant shivers of flame energy coursing through him.

"If you never desire my fangs on your flesh, Helia Cinder, I will not ask again." Ghost lifted just his eyes with his lips hovering above her knuckles. "Please do not feel as if I might accost you for it. In relative years, I am not as old as some, but I have enough control of myself to never take blood from an unwilling human."

Ghost didn't want to say that he barely took blood from any humans because the act in itself made him sick to his stomach. The masters had fed on him for decades, and just doing the same to a human, willing or not, made him feel like them. It was not the same for Stone, since he fed exclusively from Talamayas. Taking from a vampire as a vampire did not feel so predatory.

Ghost had worked through the emotional issues he'd had from his time in captivity as a slave, but he done so while connected to Stone, leaning on him if anything resurfaced. Without Stone, unpleasant things reached up his throat like fingers clawing out of his mouth to tear him apart.

"I know it's sort of messed up to ask this now, after denying you..." Helia paused on her words, eyeing her hand still in his clutches. The longer he lingered with her hand in his, the more a slow smile spread her face. It was just as Stone clung to her, though not for the same reasons.

"I will answer to the best of my knowledge any inquiry you desire, Helia Cinder." Ghost tried to reassure her, but it had her lifting a questioning eyebrow. It seemed as if she was staring at a mirage, trying to put the world back together in an order that made sense but failing miserably as he knelt at her feet and coveted her warm touch.

"Stone was injured, as you must know..." Despite saying it, Helia more of asked, further trying to convince herself that he saw through Stone's eyes.

"I am aware, as I am able to feel his pain through our connection when he wakes. Anything detrimental to his function recovered near instantly, but he is weak, so his surface wounds slowed down."

"Well, does he need to drink anything to fix that? Horus said he offered him blood and that he spit it out." Helia worded Stone's reaction delicately, rather than reiterate how he'd dry heaved into the ground and collapsed before passing out as Horus and Rodney carried him back to the Cinder complex.

"You carry a spell vial?" Ghost asked, but the question took a moment to sink in.

As it did, Helia patted herself down, reaching under the layers of outerwear, into the side of her reinforced armor, and she pulled out a thick, spell-casted glass vial, shaped like a diamond with four corners but only as long as a human finger. At the most, it would hold a few ounces, but it would be enough to restore Stone's slight wounds.

"If I may?" Ghost outstretched his remaining hand, loath to let go of hers, but he had to once she set the delicate glass in his hand. "Our connection is weak, which is likely why he is failing to heal." Ghost all but lied to Helia.

As much as he wanted to tell her that Stone was starved of vampire blood, it was not his information to give. Talamayas had commanded him to never reveal his inner working to anyone, and Stone's dependency on vampire blood as opposed to human was a better kept secret than his ability to disappear. Telling Helia would put Stone in danger if she passed the information on, even if it was innocuously to Horus Cinder. Any number of people would kill or capture Stone just to dissect him and figure out what made him tick.

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Word Count:  2053