Catafalque Hearts

Genres: Supernatural, Romance

Summary: "There's a secret in your heartbeat." / Regency-Era England AU, Vampires, Hostshipping, Anzu x Ryou

A/N: Written for Round Two of the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 10, with the pairing of Hostshipping (Anzu x Ryou). This is a Regency-era England AU (≈1820), so any historical errors are mine (obviously excluding the existence of vampires), although I am retaining the original names for the characters. The story contains some mild horror and gruesome imagery. I hope you enjoy!

Catafalque Hearts

The wheels of the coach rolled to a stop with a creak to settle deeper into the ground, still muddy from the rain that had stopped only hours before. The door opened, the occupants inside peering out to observe the man who had flagged them down. He looked young, standing in a patch of moonlight, his pale hair tied back at the nape of his neck and his clothing in muted, dark colors.

"Sir? Is there something wrong? Can we help—"

Where just one man had been standing before there were now two; the other settled a hand firmly against the carriage door, holding it open. At the front, the horses whined and shied away, pulling at their harnesses.

"Why yes, there is something you can do for us." The second man climbed inside. "Brother, you can take the driver, can't you?"

"Of course." The first man stepped back, folding his hands behind his back as he observed the driver, an older man with the high collar of his coat pulled up to his ears. Still, he could all but hear the heartbeat rising, beating faster and faster as the seconds ticked by.

Inside the coach, a woman screamed. Through the open door, the first man could see his brother, his mouth clamped tightly to her neck, blood escaping to run down and stain the lace collar of her dress. Her companion didn't even get the chance to scream; his brother's hand had run clear through the man's chest, his bloodied fingers tightening around the heart to squeeze the last few, struggling beats from it.

"Ryou. The driver."

Right, he was still alive, and staring at them with an expression of shocked, disbelieving hopelessness. Ryou frowned at his brother's technique—it almost bordered on the theatrical, and certainly crossed into the obscene—when there was something to be said for the quick, efficient kills. He didn't have to hear them scream, for one.

He fed. Once the man's blood had been drained, he pushed the body to the side, over the bench to thud against the muddy ground. His brother followed suit with the other bodies, throwing them outside. Ryou looked down to see him rifling through the various valises and bags, pulling out papers and pocketing the money.

"Brother…Bakura…"

Bakura slid out of the coach, wiping his hands against the sides of his trousers to clear away the worst of the blood. Ryou joined him on the ground, immaculate save for a few dots of red on his cravat. Bakura reached for one of the dead men's coats, taking it and slipping it on to hide the worst of the bloodstains.

"I'll drive," he said. "What do you say we arrive in style, brother?"

"That would be more than acceptable." The horses balked again as Bakura climbed up to the driver's seat and grabbed the reins to steady them. Ryou climbed inside, shutting the door and settling back against the cushioned seat. A moment later the coach was in motion, moving along the dirt road, traveling towards London.

Dozens of candles flickered in the corners and hung from the ceiling in chandeliers, bathing the room in a warm, yellow glow. She could hear the sound of the wind whipping through the moors from the corridor, open to the outside, and it sounded almost like moaning, almost human. People used to disappear in the moors, she knew. Perhaps they didn't disappear—perhaps they were stolen. Perhaps he had stolen them.

"Good. You're awake." The voice shocked her, and she leaned up; her head ached, and she remembered vaguely that she had hit it when she fainted. Why had she fainted? She had seen—

Gasping, she remembered it fully—she had seen him, the vampire, for what he was, feasting on another, blood that was not his own dripping from his fangs. He had no blood himself, and had to steal the blood from others to sustain his own existence. He had taken her, she was sure of it. Was she now in his lair?

Looking around, she saw that she was lying in a narrow box, lined with red satin tufted into squares. Luxurious. But it was far too big for her, there was too much extra room around her shoulders. It struck her, belatedly, that she was lying in a coffin. His coffin, for it could be no one else's.

"Your heartbeat, it is like music," he said, drawing closer. Dark hair curled over his shoulders when he leaned over her, and he swept it back with one pale hand. "I could listen to it forever. You are wondering what I will do to you. I will not kill you, my dear. Not yet. Not when—

"—Anzu? Anzu! You look dazed! Was the trip really that bad?"

She had not even felt the carriage stopping. Anzu looked up into a smiling face framed by auburn hair. "No, Shizuka," Anzu said. "It was fine, really. Completely uneventful. Boring, even."

"It's so good to see you again, Anzu!" Shizuka tugged on one of Anzu's arms, leading her outside to where servants were pulling luggage from the carriage to carry inside.

With Shizuka grasping her arm, her hand slipped out of its place inside her novel. "My page!"

"What are you reading?" Shizuka glanced at the title; while her stifled sigh was disparaging, her eyes followed the book with curiosity. "What sensational drivel! My brother refuses to let me read such things."

"I can lend it to you, if you like," Anzu offered with a smile. "Once I'm done."

"…Of course you will." She clutched Anzu's arm tighter as she led them inside, dropping her voice. "What else did you bring? Your family was right to send you to London for the season, we're going to have the best time. I'm sure of it. In fact, we've already been invited to a party next weekend! A small affair, though, to start you off. I wouldn't take you to a large ball when you don't know anyone!"

"I look forward to it! And how is your brother?" she asked.

"Ask him yourself. Here he comes!" Shizuka lowered her chin and blinked her eyes as the two dropped a quick curtsy, mirrored by her brother's bow. "Dear Katsuya, you remember Miss Anzu, don't you?"

"Of course! I don't forget a face."

"We were all children when we first met, brother," Shizuka reminded him gently.

"—You're still a child, Shizuka—"

"Of course, dear older brother. May I see that Anzu gets settled in?" She looked down again, the very picture of propriety, and Anzu tried to copy her example, schooling her expression into something resembling normalcy.

"And then we'll have dinner. I'll make the arrangements." Katsuya bowed again before he turned on his heel and left.

Bewildered, Anzu turned back towards Shizuka, who was towing her up the stairs. "My brother's protectiveness will naturally extend to you as well, as our guest, but I do think it's a little excessive. He dueled my first suitor, did you know that?"

"I…can imagine…"

"You'll room with me," Shizuka continued. "Let's unpack! I want to see what dresses you've brought."

Dinners were long events filled with idle conversation and long pauses while Shizuka folded her hands demurely and complimented everything her brother told them, bringing his own news from his friends and the contacts they had in the city. Carriages trundled past at all hours of the night outside, and Anzu would often sit by the windows, just staring at them and imagining stories about the people inside and the reasons behind their journeys. At each party, the three would dress up and go out, the evenings filled with introductions and drinks and dancing.

There were not nearly enough occasions to dance, living out in the countryside, and Anzu loved every second of it, clapping her hands to the music or being spun around the floor alongside several dozen new friends. They welcomed her just as Shizuka said they would, offering smiles and compliments and bits of information or gossip about the company.

"Did you hear?" someone told them once in hushed whispers. "Corpses have been turning up around the city—near some of the old foundries and factories around Whitechapel, and no one seems to know anything about it. The cause of death is most peculiar…have you read the papers? Sounds like something out of a novel…"

"We shouldn't talk about this, it's not proper." And something in Anzu's stomach twisted and she wrung her hands together, but the more she tried to lift everyone's spirits the more dampened her own became, and her heart went out to the dead.

"Mostly women, too…young women, no older than you or me—"

Later, as they were traveling home in a cabriolet, Shizuka tried to console Anzu while her brother nodded off, his head jostling against the window. "I know what can cheer you up. The ball I told you about earlier is tomorrow evening, and we can forget all of the misfortune out there in the world and just have fun for one evening. How does that sound?"

"But I cannot forget." And she couldn't, no matter how she tried to relax and purge the thoughts from her mind. "It's too awful."

"You can try," Shizuka said. "No good comes from dwelling on the tragic. What can we do? If only there was something…an action, not just contemplation." She shook Katsuya lightly on the shoulder. "Brother, wake up. We're here."

Anzu's dress was her own, but her jewelry was loaned to Shizuka by a friend, and it made her self-conscious as she walked around the ballroom, feeling the heavy weight around her neck. Like a butterfly, Shizuka flittered around the room, making more introductions, offering the two of them as dance partners. Anzu spun, doing her best to enjoy herself, laughing, and stepped outside to one of the balconies for a minute to get some fresh air and catch her breath.

The entirety of it was breathtaking, really—men who looked more dashing than the last, women in dresses and jewels finer and more radiant than she'd ever seen, music in every room, and no shortage of new faces to study every time she turned around. Growing cold, she stepped inside again, her shoulder bumping against someone else's. She twisted to the side, an apology on the tip of her tongue, but the man before her halted it with a single smile, overtaking her with his own.

"My dear, I apologize. That was my fault—although I fear I cannot be too contrite, as it led you to me." She blushed, and he took the opportunity to bow. "In penance, may I offer you my name? It is Ryou. I would ask for your own, but I have nothing to offer you but a dance."

The music was just coming to a close, setting up for another dance. "Anzu," she said. "And yes."

He took her hand, leading the two of them to the middle of the dance floor; the crowd parted, and when they danced it felt like a dream. Anzu watched him, studying the sharp line of his jaw and the perfect form of his posture, made all the more obvious in the way that he danced. She looked away when she noticed that he was watching her, too, and his expression turned amused.

"I have never met you before." She did not make a habit of conversing during dances, but with him she felt a need for alacrity, to know more about him in the current minute than she did in the last. "How do you know the host?"

"To be honest, I do not." He spoke in whispers, close to her ear. "Someone else gave me their invitation. I could not refuse an event like this!" A pause. "And how do you know them?"

"A friend of the friends I am staying with for the season—Shizuka Jonouchi, and her brother Katsuya. Surely more acceptable than sneaking in." Her grin widened, became teasing. "What do you do, Ryou? Or should I make something up in my head? Will it be better than the truth?"

"I assure you, it would be." He grinned back, and it made her laugh. "I think that is best, you know. If we each make up a story for the other, we will never be disappointed."

"Oh, I could never be disappointed in you." She laughed again, and they spun. He settled his hand lightly over hers; it struck her, then, that she could feel the coldness of his skin through her gloves. She reached her fingers up, squeezing his hand once before releasing it to spin again.

"Oh?" He was looking at her with more concern now, and when the dance ended he remained holding her hand. "Miss Anzu…"

She didn't think anyone had said her name like that before, like it was both a whispered prayer and a curse. She could feel his eyes on her, offering the full force of his regard. Her heart skipped, its beat irregular, pounding in her chest beneath the cover of the heavy, borrowed necklace.

The music started up again, but neither made any motion to leave the floor. "Another dance?" she asked, and his fingers tightened around her hand, lifting it to return them to the position for the quadrille.

The men in her novels never looked like Ryou, with his pale hair and slight build, with a countenance almost too beautiful to be conventional. She imagined, though, that they shared the same disposition: strong, resolute in their affections, romantic and determined.

"May I ask something else of you, Miss Anzu?"

"Do you have something to offer in return?" She made a joke of their first exchange, smiling at him from over her shoulder as they spun.

"What would you have of me?"

The words were too serious, too sudden, and she tried to keep up the blitheness. "I would like to see you again. Perhaps at another party?"

"I will try. And in return, I ask that you stay safe, Miss Anzu, with your friends—especially at night. Do not go out alone. With the recent crimes, I do not—"

"Do not worry about me. If you must worry, worry for the others—anyone who is already out there." The sky shone, pitch-black, through the large windows encompassing one wall of the ballroom.

"You are too kind." The second dance ended, and he dropped her hand, but the feeling remained. "You have my concern nonetheless."

He bowed, then, and she responded in turn automatically. "Till next time, Miss Anzu."

He disappeared into the crowd, and rather than remain on the dance floor she made her way to the side, where she could already see Shizuka coming closer, her smile as wide as the sea. "Who was that?" she asked, looking at the spot where he had departed. "I thought I knew everyone here!"

"His name is Ryou. He…" She trailed off, lost in thinking about what to say about him first; there were so many things that came to mind. Near delirious, the only one that came to words was, "He's...astonishing."

Bakura rolled up his sleeves to the elbow, leaning against the wall. Ryou had arrived just before dawn, and closed the gaping doors to the warehouse, lost in a bevy of manufacturing buildings and abandoned storehouses. The smell of rotting wood and the thick smoke that hung in the air were easily ignored, and the rats stayed away, as if they knew what had taken up residence there. The particular building had been closed-off and forgotten about, but the two had used it as a hideaway the last time they had been to London.

"How long has it been, brother?" Ryou asked, joining Bakura by the far wall. There were a few windows set high up by the ceiling, but the weak light only went so far, keeping the rest of the room in shadows. "Since we were here last?"

"Decades. I do not keep count of such things." From Bakura's sullen stare, Ryou knew he was thinking about where to place the blame for the good weather. They all preferred it when it was raining and bleak.

"Then what do you keep count of?" They never slept, but often used the mornings as a respite; never before had he felt so awake at this hour.

"Why so restless, Ryou?" Bakura gestured for Ryou to sit beside him, and settled his arms on his knees. "You stayed much later than I did. Did it really take you so long to find a target?"

He remembered the party—his brother had left right away, after snatching one of the servants. He was messy when he fed, and even more so depending on the rank of his prey. Ryou grunted noncommittally, and leaned back against the wall. His brother still stank of blood; no other scent was as acute to his senses.

"Even if the rumors are true, it doesn't concern us."

Ryou glanced at Bakura, frowning. "Of course it does. The killings will only increase until the heart is found. More people will be hunting us and our kind. That concerns me."

"At least you're not one of the deluded ones who think of becoming human again. It's not possible."

It was best to look straight ahead. "Like you say," Ryou said, "it's not possible. But there's no denying pure hearts have power."

"Oh yes. I wonder what one would taste like." He licked his lips. "I suppose yours is the closest I've ever come."

"Stop." He didn't even realize his hands had balled into fists, and he unclenched them; they still felt stiff, and coiled back on reflex. "That is not for discussion."

"I wish you could have tasted mine instead." Bakura ignored him, and looked almost sad at the missed opportunity. "I want to know what it would have been like, to know the flavor."

"You don't."

The memory was not fresh, but it had been replayed so many times in his head that it rose again, unbidden. A small country house. His brother, late, returning in the dead of night. Bakura, thirsty for blood, his arms outstretched. Follow me, brother, he had said. Come with me. I will not leave you to age and die when you can be like me. Forever.

And his teeth were at Ryou's throat before he could speak a word, biting, drawing away his blood, offering his own throat in return. Someone else's blood runs in my veins now, brother. And your blood will do the same.

"Something is different about you." Bakura studied him closely, leaning forward. "What is it?"

"Hmm. I don't know what you mean." Ryou mimicked his brother's movements, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. It wouldn't do to wrinkle his nicest clothes, after all. He would need them again.

Anzu closed the book and set it down, staring at the cover. The treacherous thing! She could barely concentrate on it for a page before her mind began to wander, substituting the characters with designs of her own. The beautiful maiden, imprisoned in the tower, was not rescued by a knight but by a gentleman, and when they danced together it was a quadrille, and her slippers were worn-in and her steps practiced. Shizuka would have insisted on having everything new, but she felt more like herself in her own clothes, altering them with ribbons or lace to suit the season but keeping the same fabric close to her body. Without pretension, there was nothing to hide from him, not that she would ever want to.

So why had the gentleman in question disappeared? At every party she looked for his face, asked after his name to friends, but heard nothing. And now even her stories did not satisfy her. She could not read them, not without thinking of all the ways to adapt it. She knew he was a man who did not break his promises.

"Anzu?" Shizuka had one of her finished novels and was reading it reposed on her bed, but turned to look at her friend when she put her own book down. "You look troubled."

"That is exactly how I feel."

Shizuka rolled over to swing her legs off the side of the bed and sit up, her hair flattened and tangled. "Let's go out, then! Shopping! It will make you feel better. And my brother is working, so we won't be saddled with him if we go now! Please?"

"I don't know." A light, steady rain beat against the windowpanes, but Shizuka wheedled her until she gave in. "Just for the afternoon."

Shizuka had all of their purchases sent back, just small orders of gloves and ribbons, and some pretty fabric that had caught both their eyes at one shop. At most stores, Anzu merely browsed, but her friend was right, she was feeling better.

"Go on next door," Shizuka told her, "while I finish up here."

She was looking forward to the hat shop, but as she paused at the doorway she saw something in the glass, reflecting the crowd. Convinced it was just her imagination, she spun.

She could see it, his white hair bobbing along in the crowd, turning onto a side street. Without a thought she ran after him, shoes clicking on the cobblestones, and reached out to settle her hands lightly on his arms, moving as close to him as she dared.

He turned and she gasped; it wasn't Ryou at all, but someone else, who looked enough like him to be his brother, fixing her with a look that suggested her advance wasn't the least bit unwelcome and that he knew that the tables had just been turned.

"Oh! I apologize…you're not Ryou. I can see that now." She bobbed her head, self-conscious, and made to back away. "Excuse me."

His hand reached out and snatched her wrist, faster than she could follow. His hold was light but firm, with the clear intent to prevent her departure.

"How do you know my brother?"

She saw it clearly enough in the lines of their faces and the color of their hair. "He never told me he had a brother." He should have mentioned it when they met, if only for the realized possibility that she would confuse the two.

"How do you know him?" He repeated the question, tightening his hold. It hurt, now, and she considered shouting for help, glancing back to find the street empty in both directions.

"We met at a party," she said. "Let me go, I have done nothing to you."

"When?"

"A-a week ago!" He let go and she stumbled back, clutching her wrist with her other hand. It reminded her, uncomfortably, of the way that Ryou's touch had lingered, even beneath her gloves. Their skin was both so cold.

"Your name?"

"Anzu!" He shouldn't have been so demanding, so careless with his questions and his demeanor. It was altogether disconcerting, dangerously calm to a level that made her wary.

"Do you like secrets, Anzu?" he asked.

She flushed, stepping back further. "Miss Anzu, please."

"There's a secret in your heartbeat. It's trying to tell me something." He grinned at her, the face that was so like Ryou's turning the gesture into a mockery. "I like secrets, but I prefer answers." Something strange was happening—when he smiled, his teeth were far too bright, far too long—

She turned to run, and made it all of three steps before he leapt. She never even felt the blow.

She danced in her dreams, and when she opened her eyes again everything in her vision danced and swung, painfully bright despite the lack of light. She had been draped on the floor, the cold from the concrete leeching into her skin, and when she sat up that man was there, dancing on the edge of her vision.

"Wake up, Anzu." If she closed her eyes again, she could pretend the voice was Ryou's. The gentleness of it scared her more than anything else, and she climbed unsteadily to her feet, bracing herself against the wall.

"Where am I? Where—?"

"That should not concern you. But let us trade—I will answer one of your questions for every one of mine you answer. I will tell you where we are, if you wish to know. Provided, of course…"

Her laugh stuck in her throat. "Ryou and I played a similar game, when we met." She would not waste a question on location, not when it was clear enough from the style of the building. They were in one of the manufacturing districts, to the east. Likely, too far and too isolated.

"At least give me your name for free."

"Bakura." He said it like a hiss, accompanied the name with another grin, wide with elongated teeth. "And of course you did. Ryou and I are brothers…we are very similar."

The deaths. The teeth. "Vampires."

"That is not a question," Bakura taunted her. "How does that make you feel, knowing what we are? Oh, we are not the only ones. Are we monsters to you, Miss Anzu?"

"It…does not matter." She saw his expression change for one quick second, incredulity mixed with ire, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them, the mask was back in place. "How strange. Your heartbeat is not calm, but it barely sped up when I told you what we are. How is this?"

"Ryou…it does not matter to me because I know who he is—"

"You think you know him better than his own brother-!" Bakura smashed his hands against the wall on either side of her, looming overhead, his teeth bared.

"You." And as he leaned back and observed her again he made no effort to hide his hatred. "If you have the pure heart, I should kill you now instead of waiting for when my brother arrives."

"What?"

"What do you know of our kind? Impress me. Anzu."

Were they still playing that game? "You drink the blood of others!"

"Yes, but why." He pulled at the knot on his cravat, loosening it from around his throat. "When our hearts stop beating, we must ingest the blood of others in order to replace that which we have lost. Anyone will do. But some say that the purer the heart, the more powerful the blood…and for a heart that is truly pure, consuming it will cause our own hearts to restart again. Ridiculous."

"You think I…?"

"Your heartbeat is unusual. Perhaps it is just that you are already resigned to death. Perhaps there is another explanation. I have never believed in the stories."

She had never believed in the stories either, from the ones told to her as a child to the sensational ones she read in coach trips to entertain herself. The thought that she was living one was terrifying.

"Ryou will—"

"Ryou will arrive in time to watch you die."

She shivered, her whole body suddenly and swiftly reacting to the cold.

Bakura made a tch sound in the back of his throat and shrugged out of his black tailcoat, wrapping it around her shoulders and pulling it closed where it hung too loosely. "I forget you humans get cold so quickly."

The way he said it made it sound like he considered humanity a kind of disease. His fingers lingered on her throat, drifting up to tilt her head to the side. He pulled her hair out of the way, exposing the skin there, watching her pulse quicken, his smirk widening as her heartbeat thudded on like a drum.

"Your skin is much colder," she commented idly. It was strange, being this close to death, literally having her life in his hands. If she was to die she would not waste time or energy worrying about it—better to float, at-ease, in the ether of detachment. It made her fearless, and she had no concern about turning her thoughts into words and the effect they might have on them. "If anything, it is vampires that get cold quickly."

"Ah, yes," Bakura agreed. "Dead flesh and all."

She frowned, her nose wrinkling. The flesh may be dead—she could not remember ever seeing either of them flush, or sweat, or shiver, or tire—but she could not find the right words to explain that there was more beyond the body to quantify humanity.

How a person lived, she believed, said more than how a person acquired or lost their life.

There were bloodstains on the sleeves of Bakura's coat. She was about to give it back when the large doors on the far wall opened, and a lone figure slipped inside, soaked from the rain.

Something changed in his posture; he heard the heartbeat before he saw Anzu, and he leapt forward, moving as close as he dared.

"Brother, stop this. Let her go, there is nothing to be gained from this." His eyes darted to Anzu's, who looked weakly back. She didn't want to watch him, not like this, when she had already resigned herself.

"Nothing? If I spill her blood, you cannot have it. You cannot leave me; I will not take the risk. Listen to her heartbeat, brother. Does it beat for you?"

"Do not make me fight you!" He had already shed his own coat for movement, the cravat following—anything that could be used to immobilize him was a liability. "Is that what you want?"

"What do you want, brother?"

"Are we asking each other that question now?" Ryou lunged, and Bakura shoved Anzu to the side. She crashed against the wall, clinging to it, watching as they charged at one another, swiping with fists and snapping their jaws to try and pin the other.

"I won't let you hurt her!" Ryou's shouts did not dissuade him; Bakura's laughter echoed off the ceilings. "Don't do this—don't you see, there is no winning for either of us!"

Bakura's fist cracked against Ryou's shoulder, sending him flying back to sprawl against the ground. "We've already won just by existing! We're so much more than they are, in all ways. They cannot even compare."

"But they can feel." He staggered to his feet and glanced over at Anzu, huddled and watching, and remembered the way she and Shizuka laughed together, the way she looked when she danced, so perfectly happy…something that he could never duplicate or reach.

"That is nothing." Bakura turned towards Anzu, fangs glistening, and Ryou leapt onto Bakura's back, clawing and biting at everything he could reach. There was the sharp crack of bones breaking, and Anzu looked away, burying her head in her arms, not caring that the sleeves smelled like blood. The whole room bore the scent of it now, the stolen blood spilt on the cold concrete floor.

Anzu shivered again, trembling; while she could close her eyes she could not block out the sounds. They shouted at one another, recounting sins and demanding retribution, and before long she could not tell one voice from the other. She had read things like this in her books, but this was not what she thought it would be like—it was far worse than anything she could imagine. She wondered why she ever wanted this, why she had ever imagined herself playing these roles, and remembered one fleeting instant where she had cast Ryou as the vampire who lured her away to become just like himself.

The sounds had stopped, replaced by an unnatural silence punctuated by heavy breathing and grunts of pain. She did not know who had won.

She braced herself and spun, clapping a hand to her mouth when she saw Ryou standing, his posture slumped over and one hand clutched to a gash on the opposite shoulder. Bakura was prone on the floor, his arms at odd angles, his neck broken.

"I shouldn't have done that," Ryou murmured before he fell to his knees, staring at his brother's body.

Anzu ran to his side, steadying him and doing her best to assess the damage. "Ryou…you need a hospital."

His laugh was broken, nothing like the night at the ball, and the look he gave her was forlorn. "What I need is blood."

"Then take mine." She pulled the collar of the coat back, exposing her skin. "You can have it."

He protested to the point where Anzu thought of forcing him, but instead settled back on her feet and pulled off one glove, using it to bind a wound on his arm before lacing her fingers through his. His skin was not as cold as she remembered.

"When he was turned, the first person my brother came after was me," he said, his voice quiet. "I did not try to stop him, although I should have."

"I understand." And she did, now. "You have my heart, Ryou. I give it to you freely."

"Anzu." The way he said her name made her feel like dancing. With a start, his fingers tightened around her hand and lifted it to his chest, placing it below his collarbone. Her fingertips pressed against the fabric of his shirt, questioning, until she felt the first pulse.

"I can hear it," he said. "A heartbeat."

She removed her hand to lean closer, letting him envelop her in his arms as she pressed the side of her head against his chest, listening. "I hear it, too." She counted the beats.

"Now I have one to give you in return," he said. "For you are welcome to mine."

End.

Notes:

1) A catafalque is the platform used to support the casket during a funeral. I think it's a very neat word. The vampire mythology here was completely made-up.

2) A coach is a kind of carriage used for long-distance trips; a cabriolet is the carriage version of a taxi.

3) Cravats are a kind of necktie popular during this time. Tailcoats are styled to be short in the front but long in the back. Very stylish.

4) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews.

~Jess