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Blood Bond: Love in Gentle Mind

Author: The Personification of Fluff

Rating: M, for cusses, torture/interrogation, and cute boys.

Genre: drama/romance

Disclaimer: The Night World, and its affiliates like Ash and Poppy, belong to LJ Smith. Nipissing University is a real place, and my alma mater, and I own none of it… except for one tile which, according to tradition, is now the property of the graduating class which signed it. I hold that's mine. Manny's physical description is based on a real person with whom I went to school, and her name was taken from one of my clients at work because I thought Manouchka was the prettiest, most exotic sounding name I'd ever heard. Lacey is also a real person, and may even be a witch. If so, she as a bazillion familiars. Heather McGugan is also a real person, albeit neither Scottish nor a professor at Nipissing (yet, we hope! Go you!) I am not making money off of this, thought is for advertising, I presume, and I maintain that since I'm not making money off of this, rabid fan girls everywhere may abuse Joshua within appropriate limits (i.e. Goats should not become involved.)

AN: So, after my NaNoWriMo went up a few years back (Divided we Stand) someone suggested I should do more Night World fanfics. God help them.

I sat around for a year or two, until NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month, in which you have all of November to write a 50,000 word story) rolled around in 2008. By then I had some characters in mind and a loosely constructed "plot", both of which I hear are essential to a story. After many cups of coffee and several weeks, I had fifty-one thousand words, the novel was mostly done, and I had plenty of November left. Eventually it was finished, and the editing began, and now it's ready to go up. Hopefully it will be uploaded a chapter a week, though the day it gets uploaded will change based upon my work schedule.

Unlike Divided We Stand, which was my attempt at social commentary, this was my attempt at writing a bad-ass good guy/bad guy (you know, like Damon Salvatore, who seems to switch roles depending upon what he can get out of the situation). I thought it would be fun to write… and you know what? It isn't. Joshua's character was the hardest to nail down ever and I have much more admiration to the people who can write characters like that—namely in the romance genre, and I think that they write those roles so many times (since each new male love interest is a carbon copy of the last one) that they have perfected their crafts to a science. But I leave Joshua up to you to tell me your thoughts. He seems pretty stagnant in the story because only Manny's POV of him changes (and through her, hopefully, your own)—therefore he never really changes in the story because he was always that way to begin with, Manny simply didn't notice it.

Constructive criticisms on his character welcomed.

Summary: After seeing a murder in the woods, Manny's whole world is flipped upside down: her best friend is a witch and, oh yeah, the guy she saw kill him wants to gain her silence by forcing her to drink his blood. What else do you need when you have a major paper due in a week? How about the crush of your life finally taking interest!

Chapter One

The hardest thing, Manny decided that night, was to wait for something that you knew was going to happen, to actually happen.

She squirmed in her seat as she sat in English class. Professor McGugan had started it by telling them that their first essay had been marked and would be handed out at the end of class. Most people, she had announced, had done moderately well, but some of them were utterly deplorable.

Manny knew which end she was on. The question was how low on the bad scale was she? Was it just a C+ or B-, or had she failed? The worry that she had failed her first English paper of the year made her hands damp and clammy.

Nipissing University students hated the English faculty. The first year course was specifically designed to weed out people who weren't perfectly serious about English studies. The second year mandatory course, Medieval British Literature, was just as painful and weeded out just as many students. Manny had seen at least ten people drop the course because it was so difficult reading the texts in their original language, rather than a translation of it.

"Matt's back from break," Lacey pointed out, poking Manny's shoulder. She grinned and peered down the lecture hall at the boy in question.

Matt Aspen was the number one reason that Manny refused to drop Brit Lit, the second being that she was resolute in achieving her career goal. She wanted to be a librarian at a prestigious university and work with old, foreign texts. She needed this credit. She also wanted to be working at that university library married to Matt Aspen; beautiful, volleyball-playing, Student Council-leading Matt Aspen. Even his name sounded beautiful to her.

He looked up, as if sensing eyes on him. At the back of the lecture hall Manny could still tell that they were green—bright and beautiful green, like the center of the lightest jade. Combined with his soft brown hair that fell across his forehead, decisive eyebrows that always gave him an expression of concentration, and the bump in his Roman nose that gave evidence of having been broken at least once, he was…. Gorgeous.

Lacey called him sex on a stick.

Manny didn't understand exactly what the term meant, but she agreed with Lacey in its sentiment. Matt Aspen was a walking God on their campus.

But Matt didn't notice Manny. He waved to a girl in front of Manny and she waved back, giggling. It was the typical well-endowed, long-haired blonde. It was the type of woman that the Student Council president would want on his arm walking the university hallways.

Manny did not look like the typical girl with whom a president should be seen. She was painfully ordinary. She was of average height for a girl, with above-average hips. Manny hated her hips and legs. If they were as curvy and thin as her torso, she knew she'd have her pick of men, but instead they called her fat and walked away.

Lacey patted her shoulder gently. "I'm sorry, Manny."

"Don't worry," Manny said, forcing a smile and waving away Lacey's concern. "I know that he doesn't know who I am. I'm not delusional, Lacey. I'm Captain Average. Someone like Matt needs someone… special."

"You are special, Manny!"

Her brown eyes softened as she turned to look at her roommate. Her heart-shaped face was almost angelic, and the smile she wore softened the stubborn cut of her chin. "No, I'm really not, Lace. Not special enough, anyway. Not for him."

Lacey snorted. "Then he's delusional and selfish."

She sighed with love. "No… Matt could never be selfish. He's sweet and gentle and romantic. A helpless romantic…"

Distracted as she was by Matt, she didn't pay attention to the rest of the class. Before she knew it, Professor McGugan was beginning to hand back the term papers. Lacey Embers was one of the first called. She walked down to the front of the lecture hall, poised and graceful against the snickers at her name.

People teased Lacey about her name, but they never teased her to her face. If they persisted in making fun of her name and the mental picture it created, they learned to do it in whispers very quickly. When she turned her face on them with uncanning accuracy, her violet eyes narrowing and her vibrant red hair hanging around her lips, they paled and quickly looked away.

She came back and sat in the seat with a triumphant flounce, her face flushed with happiness. Manny groaned and felt a little sick with worry. Lacey'd gotten another 'A'.

"Manouchka LaRue."

She walked down and picked up her paper in a fog. By the time she'd climbed back up to the top of Weaver Hall, she still hadn't opened it. Lacey had to pry the paper from her damp hands and press out the crinkles so she could turn the pages. Manny swallowed, finding her mouth painfully dry.

"Oh… Manny, it's not… it's not all bad."

"Just… is it a pass or a fail?"

Lacey's voice was pained. "It's a fail." Manny's head hit the desk in front of her with a painful thump and her roommate had to force enthusiasm into her voice. "But she's willing to give you a rewrite! All you have to do is go and talk to her. Go on, Manny! Talk to her!"

Manny checked her wristwatch. "Yeah… I'm going to have to. I don't want to have to take this course again. It wouldn't be as much fun without you. You go on ahead and catch the bus home. I'll be home soon."

Lacey frowned, touching Manny's dark hair gently. "Are you sure you don't want me to stick around and wait for you, Manny? I don't mind, you know."

"I know. No, you go ahead. Besides, So You Think You Can Dance will be starting soon, and we need someone to steal the television from Beth and Tanya so we can tape it. If you're not home to grab that television at ten, we're going to miss it."

"Okay. Good luck, Manny."

Lacey stuck around a few moments longer to pack her belongings and toss Manouchka a thumbs-up before she began heading off. By herself, Manny suddenly didn't feel brave enough to approach the professor, as much as she needed the credit. She quietly threw on her winter jacket and dragged her heavy backpack to her shoulder, intent on sneaking out.

"Are you certain you don't want to talk about your paper, Miss LaRue?" Professor McGugan's dry voice, thick with her Scottish accent, cut through the empty classroom, freezing Manny where she stood. "Yours could certainly use some improvement."

Knowing she was caught, Manny lowered her head and walked to the front of the Weaver lecture hall where Heather McGugan leaned against the lecture podium. Looking at her, there was nothing that made her look intimidating. Somewhere in her forties, she had thick black hair that was visibly greying and she made no sign to hide it, wearing her hair up in a professional bun at all times. She wore glasses, even when she lectured, leaving them hanging from the bejewelled cord around her neck so she couldn't misplace them. Up close, her eyes were closer to grey than blue, and fixed people with a certain penetrating stare.

Manny thought that if someone ever tried to lie in front of her about a term paper, those eyes would rip the lie from them and leave them a slobbering mess. She ducked her head lower, staring at the professor's feet, to keep from looking at those eyes.

"Do you know what the problem was with your paper, Miss LaRue?"

Her voice was surprisingly gentle, and Manny risked looking up at her. Rather than looking stern, she appeared… disappointed. Shock hit her gently and she felt a bubble of hope rising. "No."

"The problem was that I asked for you to write me an essay."

"I did."

"No, you wrote me a research paper," she admonished. "The difference between them is subtle, but an essay has an original thought behind it. A research paper just tells me what other people have thought on the subject. That's what your paper did. You never made your own claim in it."

Manny was surprised. A teacher wanted to hear her own ideas on a subject? But the teacher was continuing, picking up her lecture notes and stuffing them neatly into her briefcase. "I'll give you a week to rewrite your paper and put your own ideas into it, but don't make this mistake again. I want to hear the voice of Manny LaRue when I read your paper, and hear your original ideas. I don't want a report on what dead English researchers have thought in the past. Understand?"

'No,' Manny thought, dazed. 'I don't understand. You're giving me a rewrite? Really? Seriously?' Yet she found herself nodding, her smile so wide she thought it might make her cheeks hurt if it didn't let up soon. "Yes, Professor."

Her smile was still on her face as she left the University to head back to residence. The crowd outside waiting for the bus was huge—that was always the problem with night classes. When over a thousand students from the various faculties all were let out of class at the same time and the bus only came once every half hour, sometimes one could wait three buses before actually getting a ride.

Rather than waiting, she hiked her knapsack further up her shoulders and set off in a brisk walk. Nights in October in northern Ontario came quickly. At a quarter to ten it was almost pitch black, and it was still two days before Halloween. Her breath rolled out in waves as she walked, making her laugh. Winter was approaching, and she could feel it in the world around her—from the way the autumn leaves crunched underfoot, to the way the tip of her nose was already numb with cold, and from the sharpness in the air.

Across the street from the university, the path to the residences at the bottom of the hill went through the woods. The path was a meandering one, but paved, with emergency lights and phones interspersed around it. The path was also empty. Manny shivered with a wave of paranoia. She had never realized that without Lacey walking home with her, the path was… creepy.

Wind shook and rattled the naked limbs of trees, sounding like bones. It kicked up clouds of dead leaves and rustled them. Dark shapes skittered along the ground in the underbrush—more than likely squirrels, but possibly raccoons or skunks. Many clutched her backpack tighter and began moving faster.

A bigger shape suddenly flew out of one side of the path and into the other. Manny shrieked, and then jumped back as another large shape followed the first one. Far too big for a bird it was… a person. They disappeared into the trees, moving almost too fast for the eye to see. Now that she knew they were there, she could hear them fighting. Wondering what was going on, Manny veered off the trail to follow them.

The two shapes were a blur in the forest, but they were clearly fighting. One shape was shorter than the other, and it was the one that was winning. She watched through the cedar bushes and trees as they came body to body and the smaller shape flung off the other one into a tree with a loud crack. Manny covered her gasp with her hands, thinking the other person dead. He hit the tree with such a loud crack that surely even lower residence had heard it! But he stood up, shaking his head to clear it, and lunged at the other shape.

As they fought, constantly moving, the light from the streetlamps came close enough to illuminate their faces for a moment. Her heart stopped beating when she saw them. They were… beautiful. They were the best looking men that she'd ever seen. The larger one had a face like a Roman, with high, sculpted cheekbones and dark hair that lay flat against his head with sweat. The other one looked like a Gaul, she thought, or maybe a Frank, with close-cropped brown hair so fair it turned blonde in the light.

She wondered what they would be fighting over as the larger one punched the short one in the face so hard she heard his nose break. Blood ran down his lips and chin from the blow, but he acted like nothing had happened, punching the man back in the sternum and making him double over. While his opponent was weakened he slammed his open hand down across the man's neck. Manny gasped and realized that she was seeing something serious. A move like that would break a man's neck! It could shatter the backbone and cripple him!

But the other man just went to his knees from the force of the blow. He was still alive and breathing, his arms still working. The dark-haired man glared up at the other one. "You'll never be able to keep her, old man."

Ah, Manny thought, so this was about love.

The light-haired man clenched his hand and reached down to his belt. Manny had watched enough television to recognize a knife being drawn even when she could neither see it nor hear it. "We'll last long enough without a pup like you to tattle on us."

Without another word, he slammed the knife he held into the man's chest, right into his heart. The man went stiff with pain and the force of the strike drove him to his back. His legs made a few futile kicks, and then he was still.

Manny screamed.

It was a stupid thing to do, she'd realize later. If she hadn't screamed, she could have made it back to lower residence and called the police without a problem. Screaming had just seemed like the natural thing to do. She had just seen a man stab another man in the chest with a knife. She should scream. His legs kicked futilely in death. She should scream. She could smell it when his bowels released. She should scream.

A man was laying across from her, dead, and she had just seen a man kill him.

She should scream.

The man's head whipped up and his eyes focused on her inert form as she stood locked with fear, still screaming. She'd scream until her breath ran out. He quickly drew the dagger from the man's chest, and when the scent of blood reached her, it spurred Manny into running. She turned and fled, hearing the man's footsteps after her.

The rest of the way to lower residence was all downhill—easy running. She dumped her knapsack on the ground and heard a satisfied trip. She risked a glance over her shoulder to see that the man had actually stumbled over it. How? How had he gotten close enough so soon to be able to trip over it?

Just how fast was he?

She had her answer a half second later when he stood up and came after her with inhuman speed. In the time it took her to curse he'd taken up half the distance between them. Her whole body jerked when she tripped into the underbrush. She'd missed one of the turns in the path and was in the forest now. Her momentum carried her forward and she fell, headfirst, down the rest of the path to home.

Branches dug into her limbs and she curled herself instinctively to protect her head. They ripped at her clothes and hair. She was done for if she struck a tree going at her speed. If that didn't kill her, then the man behind surely would take advantage of a concussion! He'd already killed a man in cold blood!

She cried out as they bruised her body and gagged when dry leaves and dirt filled her mouth as she rolled and fell down the steep hill, but she slowly came to a stop. Manny willed her body into getting up, rolling over on all fours and ignoring the pain. She wasn't certain where she was, but she could see the tall seven-floor building of Chancellor's Hall in front of her. All she had to do was head toward the lights.

She was limping for home when she heard a soft thud behind her. Manny turned and looked over her shoulder to see the man in a crouch. He'd followed her, straight down the hill, except that apparently he'd kept his balance rather than falling the whole way. His head shot up and his eyes locked on her. She swore she could see his nose twitch, as if he were picking up her scent. Manny broke into a run as best she could on her legs, clutching at her side and hoping that her ribs weren't broken from her perilous fall.

The door was close. Her head felt foggy. She began to slow and stumble, giving into the urge to sleep away the pain and dizziness. Manny pushed such thoughts away. She could sleep after she was safe.

Manny reached the door and tried to wrench it open, but the door was locked. She cursed loudly, reaching for her keys in her pocket with shaking hands. They were shaking so bad that she couldn't manage to get the key into the lock on her first try. When she did, she had to struggle to remember which way to turn it. Clearly, Nipissing had not designed the doors with consideration for young ladies horrified beyond their imagination trying to find sanctuary.

She looked over her shoulder, she saw that the man was almost upon her. His lips were tight in anger and she could make out the color of his eyes now. They were violet, but not the deep amethyst of Lacey's eyes—his were a murky, blue-tinged purple, the color of the deep ocean or galactic dust clouds. He lunged for her, and she suddenly fell through the door. Sharp pains stabbed her knees as she tumbled to the linoleum floor. The shadow of the man fell around her. Manny called out for help, and for the police. She saw the shadow still for a moment, panicked. She scrambled to her feet, limping heavily, and past the stairs into the main room, and to the front desk, still screaming for police.

Glancing through the door back into the stairwell and the back door, the man was glaring at her. His eyes searched her face, studying it… memorizing it. Then, he slowly lifted his arm and pointed at her, then drew his finger across his throat before he walked back out the back door. The meaning was universal, and Manouchka felt weak in the knees from it.

He was going to kill her.

-To Be Continued