What would you do if faced with the impossible?

Chapter 7: Mousetrap

I didn't remember getting home, just like I didn't remember drinking an entire bottle of wine when I did, but I must have. My stomach churned and squirmed, gurgling obnoxiously loud, and I had to swallow hard to stop myself from throwing up. Only, when I did, I gagged. My mouth tasted like I'd been sooking on old pennies.

Groaning, I tried to roll to my side but my wrist was caught on something. Too exhausted too untangle myself from whatever it was, and finding even the smallest movement enough to inspire my stomach to heave, I remained on my back.

My bed smelled strange too.

Turning my head to bury my face into the pillow, I was met with a pleasant woodsy scent, and another, clearer, like the smell of snow in the air. My mouth watered, my throat began to itch, and the sensation of my neck and shoulder being pricked by a thousand, deep piercing needles grew until the area from my jaw down to my chest felt like it was being scalded in acid.

Before a scream could pass my open mouth, something soft yet firm pressed against my lips, something dripping a warm liquid that spilled onto my tongue in steady pulses. It hurt to swallow, but the second I managed to choke down the first mouthful, it acted as a cooling balm soothing the fire.

I only managed two more gulps before what I'd a first registered as a sweet honey flavour, turned to horrid copper again. Pressure tried to urge me to turn my head back, but I was already drifting off again.

The next time awareness returned, it came back in pieces. Voices disturbed my slumber; broken bits of conversation between two men, sometimes joined by a woman. Laura?

"I should take my belt to your ass first, never mind hers," the deeper of the two men growled.

"That's not my thing as well you know. She did nothing wrong. Neither did I, for that matter. I walked her right to the steps checked the area for any sign of something out of place. There was nothing. I didn't sense so much as a witches charm besides the one Laura uses at the front door," the other said, his tone weary, like he'd had to repeat it a few times already. "I watched her just as you asked, I heard her get to the door, heard her put the keys in the lock for god's sake. I went back to check on her, even after she basically called the both of us socially inept by the way. That fact I went back is the only reason she's still alive, Taran. That thing would have just waited for me to leave otherwise and scatter her from her bed."

The horror ignited by what I heard was enough to make me forget to breathe.
I tried to move, to open my eyes, to take in enough breath to ask why Taran and Wren were in my room and why they were saying such gruesome things. I couldn't. Maybe this was a vivid dream. Too vivid. I had the vague sense of someone walking around my bed.

"I told you to watch her walk through the door. That charm only works once they're over the threshold and Laura assures me it's legitimate. This is on you. You disobeyed me, and look what happened!"

"I was there to hear her make so much racket the police showed up not long after I managed to get her away. If my presence were to have flouted it this time, and Laura's cheap charm really works, then whoever sent that rabid thing would simply send it again. It could have waited for her to drive home from her next shift, and it would have killed her before she could have taken a step from the car. Besides," Wren hissed. "This is as much your fault as mine. You brought an unsuspecting human into our world and let her get mixed up with Frank, for what? You like the smell of her? She smells just like every other human to me. So what is it? You enjoy that irritating naivety, the lost look in her eyes, you want her kneeling at your feet so you can say you broke her, had her, win whatever challenge it is she poses to you that seems to be turning you witless, then get rid of her

"You promised Laura you would protect her friend, but you left her ignorant and gave her a scrap of fabric like that would be enough! A random vampire isn't going to see that and know what it means. Without your scent on her skin, in her blood, you giving her that silk was basically wrapping her in a big ribbon as a gift for your enemies!"

The tension in the air was suffocating, and if I twitched or groaned at all, the two men didn't seem to notice. None of their conversation made sense. It was like listening to a snippet of a radio show with no context.

Taran, whether he was a dream or not, stopped trying to place blame on whatever mishap has happened and asked with some reserve, "You think Gwydion is behind this?"

"I think Frank is at the very least. He was insulted when he was here, by a human girl no less, and he never takes insults well." His words cut off strangely, as if he was struggling to catch his breath as I was.

A few seconds passed with nothing but Wren's laboured breathing before Taran muttered, "You should have brought her to me. You're going to sense her emotions like that until your blood leaves her system, and even then there might be a residual bond." He sniffed the air, and his next words were spoken on a rumbling growl that would intimidate the worst of men. "She reeks of you."

Again I tried to force my eyes to open, to even lift a finger if that's all I could manage. And Again Wren made a strange noise.

"I think she's waking up. She's screaming in my head; it's making my ears ring."

"Better release her wrists or she'll wake up and scream for half the city to hear."

It was the touch of cool fingers that seemed to connect my brain to my body again, as if it needed the outside stimulus to remind it I even had a physical form. A clicking of buckles being undone near my ear made me flinch, but it was the accidental brush of an arm near the spot where my neck met my shoulder, inspiring a flare of fiery pain, that gave me that final reboot. My hand flew up to shove the offending arm away with surprising force. Taran grunted and staggered, catching my wrist in his vicelike grip when I lashed out again in a panic.

Opening my eyes to an unfamiliar room, with two men I hardly knew, and a blank memory of the night before, brought sickening dread forth.

"Don't touch me!" I shrieked, taking myself free. Picking up the nearest pillow, I battered it against Wren and shoved myself flat against the headboard to create as much distance as possible between us. "Where am I?"

"My room," Taran answered calmly. "In the Blackbird. A few of us stay here."

Cult, my mind spat. Definitely a cult. How come cult had never crossed mind? Pimp, drug ring, gang - all those I'd pondered over the possibility of, but cult ticked all the right boxes. The symbols I'd seen people wearing, the ribbons and chokers with hidden meanings, the members only room, the strange turns of phrase and need for privacy and control. . .

"You were attacked last night, Sorcha, don't you remember?" Taran prompted, nodding head. "Your neck."

My neck.

Eyes flicking between the two men in case this was some rouse to distract me, even though Wren hadn't uttered a word and seemed to be trying to cement himself to the floor, I slowly lifted my hand to brush my fingers over my neck. It throbbed and sung just as it had when one of their arms had accidently touched it. I whimpered at the sight of rust coloured crusts of old blood, and the brighter watery fresh drops that came away on my fingertips.

Memories came rushing back like a tidal wave. The noise I'd heard at my door, the hand pressed suffocatingly tight over my mouth, and how, morbidly, I'd never seen the world as clear and vivid as I had in the moments before I felt my body give up. . .I was so sure I was going to die. . .

"Sorcha." Fingers snapped in front of my face, Taran's voice form and demanding. "Focus. This is important. Do you remember the attack? Do you feel alright? Your wound is healing but it might take a few hours yet."

A few hours? How could it possibly heal in a few hours? I'd felt my flesh tear away from bone, muscle chewed between teeth. A wound like that would scar. A wound like that should have killed. How was I here? How had Wren found me? Had my attacker been arrested by the police?

The more I thought about it, the more my mind spiralled, and the more light headed I got. Bile burned the back of my throat at the image of sharp teeth strung with bits of my flesh stuck my head.

"Wren, for god's sake, you made the choice to give her your blood, so use what you've forged before she throws up. Look at her."

"It's not like I'm her maker," he spat back. "I didn't turn her. She's still your little pet human to toy with till you grow bored, so you feel with her."

Frustration, the jerking sensation of being torn in two directions, only made this twilight zone experience all the more disorientating. Wren's analogy hit hard. Almost as if he knew the nickname Taran had for me, but he couldn't, and that made it all the more jarring. Did Taran often toy with women?

"Control yourself, before I have to control you."

At first I thought the threatening words were aimed at me as a hysterical sob built in my chest, but it was Wren Taran moved to loom over. "You're doing this to her. You need to calm down so she can process what's happened. What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" Wren snapped, his expression creased. His hands fisted, a wild gloomy illuminating his eyes to an eerie gold. . .then all at once he slumped as if suddenly drained. He barged past Taran and marched out the room, throwing back over his shoulder, "If she needs more, you open your vein. I only saved her for you anyway."

I sat frozen, and feeling oddly rejected.
"Was I drugged last night?"

"No, Little Mouse. I'm afraid what you remember really happened, and I am very sorry for it. Would you like to wash? I can run a bath-"

"I don't want a fucking bath, I want answers!" I shouted, then immediately covered my mouth in shock. "I'm sorry. I never swear."

With a sad smile, Taran pushed back my hair to study my neck, ignoring the way I cringed away from his touch. "On this occasion, I will let you off. Your emotions are not entirely your own right now so I can hardly punish you for your reaction. I remember well how it feels, and I didn't have your. . . extenuating circumstances."

"That doesn't make sense." I whimpered, eyes darting around the room for any sign of my phone. Laura would notice I was gone, she'd alert the police, wouldn't she?

And that. . .that thing that had attacked me. It couldn't have been real. It wasn't possible. I must have fallen on the stairs outside the flat and hit my head, or had more whisky with Ness than I thought, or-

"Ouch!"

I rubbed my stinging thigh, giving Taran a glare, but as if he hadn't just pinched my leg, he continued to inspect my neck.

"Focus," he repeated his earlier order.

"If what I remember really happened then I should be dead."

"Focus on something else."

"There's blood in my mouth."

He chuckled, leaning back to perch on the edge of the bed. "How does it taste?"

"Bitter."

"You lost a lot of blood, Wren had to replace it."

Reeling, I stared at him in disbelief. "By feeding it to me? You're fucking nuts! All of you. I want to go home. I quit. I. . .I have to call the police if I was attacked. I should be reporting you."

Dragging myself away, I rolled to my feet, staggering a few steps before pain slowed me down. I hung on to the bedpost to stop from collapsing, panting hard and wondering why Taran wasn't rising to stop my escape attempt.
It turned out he didn't need to. When I lifted my head to try and make it across the room for the door, I was met with my reflection in the mirror hung on the wall.

The sight of myself was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

Blood, some wet and bright red, but most darkening and flaking off, covered nearly every inch of me. My once white crop top was stained a gruesome pink, my hair had dried in clumps, it even coated my fingers and I could feel it gathering under my nails. All that was startling enough. More so was seeing the blood smeared around my lips in a horrific imitation of lipstick.

My tongue ran over stained red teeth. I remembered drinking something. . .something I'd found as delectable as the finest chocolate at first. . .

Good god. Wren really had fed me blood, poured it down my throat and gripped my jaw when I refused to drink more.

A strange calm settled over me as my eyes moved from my mouth to the side of my neck where the deranged man had taken a chunk out if me. A bruised impression of teeth painted my neck in a black and purple bruise, and two small cuts maybe an inch apart on the top curve, were still bleeding. It didn't look like I'd expected considering the agony I'd been in, and from the swirl pattern of the blood still on my skin, it appeared someone had made an effort to clean it. Trance like, I shuffled across the thick carpet to stand before the mirror, my brain refusing to connect what my eyes saw with the word my mind immediately conjured on sight.

Maybe Taran and the others were in a cult, but that wasn't all. The thought chilled me to my core as my gaze met Taran's in the mirror.

"That gut reaction you just had," he said roughly. "That primitive instinct that's reared its head from a time when humans knew well they were still prey - it's right. You know what attacked you. You're thinking the word right now but you're too afraid to admit it."

Watching his slow approach did indeed make some age old instinct deep inside scream at me to run. I never got a glimpse of my attackers eyes but I imagined if I did they would have the same primal glint I saw in his. Before I could make a dart for the bathroom to lock the door, or escape through the same door Wren had, he lunged with the predatory grace of a panther.

One moment I was before the mirror and the next I was being spun round and shoved up next to it. The force of his weight throwing me against the wall snapped my head back. My vision swam, a cry trapped in my throat by strangling fear. Fingers curled around my upper arms, Taran easily avoiding a feeble attempt to knee him between the legs. A bloodcurdling growl built in his chest, and the human face inches from my own contorted into something else, something as deadly as it was beautiful. Taran's took on a wild silver sheen as he pulled his lips back to reveal a pair of elongated sharp white fangs.

I could only stare, going limp as I came face to face with something I couldn't deny or brush off by conjuring up plausible, mundane reasoning. There was no hiding from the truth he was showing me no matter how impossible.
Laura must have known. She must have known this whole time. Her warnings all made perfect sense. No wonder she was so determined not to let me meet her friends, why she did everything to try and convince me not to work here.

"Do I need to show you more?" Taran asked, his voice slightly distorted by fangs.

I shook my head.

"Do you want that bath?"

I nodded.

There was nothing else for it.
Continuing to act like he hadn't just revealed the existence of vampires, and that I'd both fed and been fed from in the space of the last twelve hours, Taran released my arms and stepped back. "I can give you a shirt to cover yourself with if you're shy."

"Shy?" I asked, certain I was no longer in my body but watching everything play out from another corner of the room.

"Until I know you're alright, I can't leave you alone. You can't stay in those clothes, they're ruined. We'll try and wash the blood out but I don't think your top is salvageable."

"Definitely alright, or definitely human? If Wren gave me his blood. . .you're saying he's like you too. . ."

That's right, Sorcha, deal with the facts for now then freak out later, I thought to myself.

Taran laughed, apparently finding some amusement in my hesitant question. To assure me, he leaned in close enough to make me jump, taking a deep inhale through his nose and exhaling on an almost purr. "You're still very much human, Sorcha. Painfully so."

My gaze darted to his, but his expression was closed off as he straightened again.

Painfully so.

I shivered.

Frank calling me vulnerable made much more sense now. I'd been helpless last night. If it weren't for Wren. . .but how, how could it have been real? How could this be real? There had always been something about Taran that had rang alarms but being a vampire?

A shirt pressed into my numb hands. Grey and wrinkled, it smelled like Taran's cologne and leather jacket.

"You can wear this for now till Laura drops off something for you." He hovered a moment, eyes raking up and down my trembling form, taking a deep breath as if he wanted to say something else, but then changing his mind and walking past me into an en-suite bathroom.

The light buzzed to life, spilling into the darkened bedroom. Evidence of a massacre was made clear. Bloodstained tissues were overflowing in a wire bin by the bed, a bowl of murky pink water sat on a stool, and my jacket lay in tatters at the end of the bed, as if it had been cut or torn off me.

I should be dead, the thought rang round and round my head, crystal clear, and chilling.

Or maybe it was the cold settling in the air making goosebumps rise on my arms, and my teeth chatter together.

The sound of my panicked heart thumping nearly downed out the sound of the water pouring into the bath.
Rubbing my face with trembling hands, I grimaced as flecks of blood crumbled away. It only served to remind me of the nightmarish state I was in.

"I need to call Laura," I mumbled to myself, trying and failing to take a step towards the bed to begin my search for my phone to no avail. My laugh verged on hysterical, catching at the end of a choked sob. "Why am I always losing my phone in this place?"

Gentle hands guided me to turn back around and head into the bathroom already filling with steam.

"You're in shock, Little Mouse. Let me take care of you."

Except I was certain it was his care that got me into this mess in the first place. Not to mention he was like that thing that attacked me. . .and I'd let him touch me, let him. . .

Something snapped inside me. "Shock? Of course I'm in shock! A monster nearly killed me last night, a monster that shouldn't even exist! And now I'm trapped here with more monsters. None of it should be possible! You shouldn't be possible. And what wren did with his blood. . ." My stomach heaved at the thought, but throwing up blood was a horror I could live without so I sucked a deep breath of the soap scented air and forced myself to keep it down.

Maybe I did die, I pondered. Vampires weren't real. This was all some strange limbo dream. Or maybe I'd gone to hell. All my family did and does to keep their money and appearances, maybe this was my punishment for taking too long to break away.

If this was death, it felt real. All too real. The tiles were cool beneath my feet, steam tickled my skin, and Taran's rage was as palpable as the buzz before lightening struck.

"Wren saved your life," he said slowly. "And yes, perhaps it was against my better judgement, but I gave you a job and my protection, so I would be careful before you think to lump either of us in the same category as the creature that attacked you, monster or not."

That was me telt.

Yet I couldn't help but notice. . .

"You aren't denying being a monster?"

A sharp breath of air left him that might have been a laugh. Obsidian eyes glinted silver as he smirked. "No. I don't deny it. But I'm not going to hurt you, Little Mouse. Not unless you ask me to."

A zing went up my spine. Fear. Fear and something hot that made my next breath clip on a shudder.

Without a word, he turned his back to me. It took me a minute to remember I was clinging to his shirt, fingers curled so tight into the fabric that it hurt.

I stared at his back for a long minute. Was I really going to strip with him in the room? Shouldn't I have been running for the door? I was scared, scared enough my heart trilled in my chest and my legs shook, but I was strangely numb at the same time, too drained to fight; at least that's what I told myself when I began to strip of my gore-ridden clothes. All inhibitions deserted me.

Pain riddled my aching body as I bent to shove down my jeans. Tears stung until I was forced to blink and let them spill, and I sensed Taran stiffen as I choked down a sob. Where I wasn't bloodied, I was bruised from being dragged and pinned. I couldn't see my back, but a dull throb painted an image of a bruised spine in my mind. My underwear was discarded as well, kicked to the corner with the rest of my ruined outfit so I wouldn't have to see it.

I was so gross that I felt bad as I gingerly slid Taran's dark grey shirt over my head. I hissed as the fabric settled against the healing bite that burned in protest.

Sniffing, I wiped my nose and managed to emit a sound Taran interpreted as permission to turn around. A woman standing half-naked in the middle of his bathroom looking like she'd survived a slasher film didn't seem to disgust him. He turned the taps off and tested the water with his hand the way my nanny had done before giving me a bath as a child.

When he reached out a hand for me, I flinched back.

"You can trust me," he promised. "Get in, I won't touch you if you don't want me to, as long as you can manage on your own. Then we'll get you something warm to eat, anything you want. If you can keep food down and the bite closes up without issue, all will be well and you won't have to suffer Wren's bitterness again."

My mouth salivated at the very thought of what he implied, and I was still too delirious and confused to understand if it was because of disgust or because the thought of Wren's blood inspired a scratching in my throat akin to craving. . .

"He said you should do it if I needed more, didn't he?"

"He did, but humans can fall to the bond created when blood is shared like Wren did for you, and you and he seem to have a strong emotional connection despite your dislike of each other. To add me into the mix could be disastrous for all of us, and I would not wish to see you end up a shell of yourself only capable of following the word of her masters."

My head pounded as I tried to wrap my head around that. "I don't understand."

"Let me help you in and I will explain. Or, I can pick you up and put you in."

Too tired for our usual parry, I took his hand and allowed him to support me as I stepped into the bath. I sunk in slowly, feeling a little odd bathing with a shirt on, but as the warmth of the water enveloped me and soothed every ache, satisfaction brimmed with a deep sigh.

My eyes fluttered shut.

For a moment, the steam washed away my inner turmoil, and I managed to finally relax my muscles, to take a proper breath.

I felt Taran watching, but couldn't being myself to care. Not even when I sensed him move and heard the trickle of water, followed by a hand gently picking mine up. It was easier to pretend I didn't notice as I felt him start rubbing at the blood crusted to my fingers with what felt like a soft cloth.

"I can wash myself," I murmured, feeling heat rise to my cheeks.

Intently focussed on his work, he made a noncommittal noise, dunking the cloth into the water already beginning to turn pink. His fingers were rough against my skin, but gentle as he turned my hand palm up. Pausing, he prodded at the calloused tips of the fingers on my left hand. "You play guitar."

"You said you'd explain this bond you mentioned," I replied, ignoring what I was sure was a statement more than a question anyway. "You said I'm alive, and still human, but I feel. . .weird. I feel like someone else is inside my skin. Is that the bond you mentioned? What is it? Will it go away? Will I feel like this forever?"

"Sit back so I can clean your face and neck," Taran ordered.

Once my head was tilted towards the wall, Taran gripped the shirt I wore, inspiring a lick of terror. Fabric tore loudly by my ear. Tensed and waiting for a blow or sting of fangs, when I realised he'd only been trying to reveal the wound on my neck, a hysterical bark of relief nearly broke free.

If Taran wanted to get me, he would have by now, I decided in my delirium. With the fabric now gaping and soaking wet enough that it hid barely anything anyway, I sat up and tugged it off.

"Look anywhere you shouldn't and I'll learn how to use a stake," I muttered, tossing it on the floor, crossing my arms over my breasts as if that afforded me any amount of decency.

Taran laughed softly but made sure he went right back to cleaning my neck without his gaze darting anywhere that would make my blush deepen.

"When a vampire bites a human, they can chose to open up a connection with them; it helps us wipe memories when we hunt, or settle someone when they try to struggle."

I'd almost grown pliant when he began to speak, my head tilting slightly to hear him better.

"It's a subtle connection, and it fades within hours. However, when a human drinks blood from a vampire in turn, it opens up the potential for that connection to a whole other level. A mouthful, and some might feel the bond as no more than a tickle in their breast bone for a day or two. They'd be easily influenced by whoever they fed from of course, but it too would fade if not re-established. More than a mouthful, and they might be able to sense each other's emotions, and the vampire would be able to subdue the human's will to impose their own. That connection too would eventually fade if blood isn't shared again.

"You are a rare case. Any delay in Wren finding you and the amount of blood he gave you would have turned you. He got to you just in time and even then. . ." His hand stilled, water dripping from the sponge to tickle my thigh as his voice lowered. "It is a miracle you woke up human, Sorcha. Wren had to feed twice himself to keep up with what your body demanded. It seems the pair of you have an intense bond. His reactions to your emotions have been. . .striking to say the least. Usually powerful bonds like that are between maker and made. I have only once before seen a bond between vampire and human that has been as yours and Wren's appears to be, and those two were able to feel the emotions and intentions of the other so intensely as to be unable to distinguish their emotions from one another. It grew almost telepathic when she finally turned him. They mated."

Mated? The term wasn't something I'd ever heard in relation to humans, or people rather. It was a term with primal connotations, though from the sound of this bond, I could understand why. It sent a bolt of fear through me. Or maybe it didn't. Was it Wren's fear coursing through my veins? Whatever it was, Taran sensed it.

"Don't look so mortified. Wren doesn't wish to so much as acknowledge he gave you blood, never mind your connection or trying to use it. It will fade over time as his blood leaves your system and it'll be as if it never was."

For him maybe. How would I ever forget?

"How long until it's gone?"

"That you are as displeased as I am that you're linked to him makes me think it might not be as strong as I originally estimated."

I hummed, eyeing the darkening red water. That was the least of my concerns really. Swallowing the lump in my throat, my voice came out a terrified whisper, "What about the thing that attacked me? Is it gone? Will it come back? Why did it come after me? Was it a vampire too? It wasn't like you and wren. You look. . . " The image of his face when he showed his true self flashed in my head. He'd still appeared mostly human, a different more dangerous breed maybe. ". . .nearly human. The thing looked like a monster."

"That thing," Taran repeated, keeping his gaze respectfully on mine even while he moved around the bath to sweep the sponge over my shoulder near the swell of my breast. "Is what vampires become when we live only for the hunt. When blood consumes us. From what Wren said, it still had sense enough to talk. It was no accident that it chose you. It was waiting, just out of range for Wren to sense, or someone was shielding it which a worrying theory. I. . . I hope you come to forgive me in time for what you've suffered."

I frowned, unease settling in my bones.

"I will find out who sent him after you, Sorcha. I have my suspicions - it's just a case of confirming one - then I can make sure they're dealt with. Nothing will happen to you. As soon as this is over, I'll do what I promised and find you another job, somewhere far away from this mess where you can live your life and forget vampires are creeping in the shadows."

Regret etched deep lines into his forehead, his hand stilling over where my heart thundered. Could he hear it? Feel it? Could he smell my blood? Did he crave it? Why was I annoyed that despite my warning, he didn't look lower then my jaw, didn't even seem tempted to peek. Maybe it was the fact I was swimming in a bath of blood.

"There's no forgetting what I saw, or what happened," I croaked, closing my eyes. "Besides, if Laura is involved in this, then I'm not going anywhere."

"Laura can handle herself. She has protection from more than myself and Mac but all host of other clients who are fond of her. The same can't be said for you. You're not just a human, but an unclaimed one, walking around a pub where Vampires come to feed. Even though being one of the staff affords you a level of respect from most, not all see it the same way. Wren is right, wearing my colours and crest is not enough to fool them. It's not safe for you to work here, and after tonight, I won't have your life put in danger on my watch again."

I shoved his hand away, again with more strength than I should have possessed. Something to do with the fact Wren's blood was coursing through my system?

"It's not up to you. I like this job, so I'm keeping it, thank you. Unless you have a genuine reason to fire me." Steeling myself, I gripped the sides of the bath and hoisted myself up. Black dots ate up my vision and I felt myself sway, and the heat of a hand reaching out to steady, but Taran seemed to know better than to actually touch me. Once I could see again, I gave him a look I hoped Laura would be proud of. "If I have to do what Laura and Cait do to stay and be safe, I could learn to. They're feeding you right? That's what happens behind the red door."

Standing slowly, Taran's eyes flicked down for a moment. Just a moment. But his gaze left a trail of heat. "That's one of the things, yes. Cait is a donor employed by me. Laura also works for me sometimes, but Mac is in charge of who she sees, especially as Laura also does, well, things in addition to simply offering her wrist. I assure you it's entirely consensual, well regulated, and observed. Donors who work for others are welcome to apply for one of the black cards to get them through the door, however while we offer safety for all in our walls, we are not responsible for them."

"I've already fed one vampire-"

"Do not. Make jokes." He grit out, gripping my arms and giving me a sharp shake. "You could have died. I thought you were going to even with Wren's blood. I thought you would have the sense to see the danger now, Little Mouse. Has it still not sunk in what happened to you?" His expression grew concerned, eyes clinically searching my face as if looking a wound that would explain my state of cool panic.
Muttering to himself, he turned away and came back with a fluffy black towel that he began to wind around me.

"I know what happened to me, Taran. I was the one it happened to. You don't have to baby me."

Taran sighed and cupped the back of my head, tugging me towards his chest. At first I went stiff, certain this was the moment he would snap my neck or sink his fangs into my flesh. When neither of those things happened, and instead I felt the safety of being caged in arms of steel, I nearly broke. Tears brimmed, my breath caught, but I shoved it all down. Because if I broke, I would relive it, and I couldn't bare that. Couldn't even bare to admit I was breathing in the scent of a man who could kill me as easily as I'd almost been the night before.

"Even if I thought you weren't calm from shock, that you weren't going to wake tomorrow or the next day and realise you should run fast and far. . .even if I thought you would enjoy feeding my kind, and be enjoyed by many as Laura is, I couldn't allow it," he uttered roughly in my hair.

"Why?"

I didn't bother denying that maybe I would come to my senses and realise it would be as stupid for to stay here as it would for a mouse to play with a cat. I myself was waiting for the part of me desperate to escape to return.

Standing in the steam filled room felt like a dream I would wake up from so what did it matter if I saw how it played out?

His arms tightened around my waist and his hand held my hip in a bruising grip as his voice became a distorted growl. "Because, if you were to stay, you wouldn't get the chance to feed any other. I would claim you as mine. And as long as you were mine, I would be very picky about who got to touch you, never mind taste."

He started to pull away and my thighs clenched, my fingers itching to claw him back. His chest expanded as he took a deep breath through his nose, and whatever he smelled made his jaw slacken and his eyes roll back. For a moment, he stood stricken - seemingly at war with himself - before he moved with lightening speed. In one move I was lifted from the back, spun around, and caged against the door.

My mind went into overdrive as his hands skimmed down to grip a handful of my rear through the towel, squeezing soft flesh as his lips played by my ear. "I could show you what's behind that red door if you want. Say yes. Be mine for as long as it takes to deal with whoever sent another to attack you and I'll fulfil that craving you're not even aware of yet. I'll show my world. And when it's done, you can choose whether you stay or leave. Say yes, Little Mouse."

"I. . .I don't even know if I can trust you."

How could I be hesitating on saying an outright no? This wasn't risking reputation or a job, but my life. I should be running for the hills. Screaming for the world to beware of what lurked in the night. Yet as my heart thundered and fear warred with the excitement building in my gut the longer onyx eyes implored me to agree.

How could I run before I had all the answers about a world that shouldn't exist? A world Laura had hidden from me.

How could I run from the chance to see what hid behind the harsh exterior of my boss, a man who may or may not wish to corrupt and devour me? A Vampire who could rip my last breath from my lips before I could scream? Was there something wrong with me to find that very thought made me feel more alive than I ever had in my life?

"Yes."