Susie groaned as the light from the enroaching sunlight hit her eyes. "Ugh, I...what happened?"

"Morning, sleepyhead."

Susie shaded her eyes to look at her boyfriend, Tom Sloane, and saw that she was in his apartment. She also noticed that she was nude. And covered in dried blood. "Oh God," she muttered, pulling a sheet (also covered in dried blood) over herself. (Not that Tom hadn't seen her naked before, but...)

"Last night was the full moon, wasn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "Shit!" She brought a fist down on the mattress. "After twenty years, you'd think I'd learn to read a goddamned calendar!"

"Hey, hey, don't be so hard on yourself," he said, kissing her on the top of her head. "That's my job, after all," he winked.

Susie gave him a dirty look, which melted into a sultry smirk a moment later. Her smirk went away when she thought of last night. "The last thing I remember is walking back to the apartment from the library..."

"Yeah, I saw you change just a little ways away from your building." At her look, he added "Oh, I was coming over to surprise you." He gestured to a bouquet of flowers in a vase.

"Aw, how sweet!" Susie blushed.

Tom smiled. "Yeah. Anyway, I followed you, to make sure that you were safe -"

Susie snorted. "Yeah, protect the big bad wolf from the scary steak tartare walking around."

"Hush you," Tom chided. "Anyway, I saw you tear the head off some poor sap. You were about to eat, but then I guess you heard me or something, so you ran off into the woods. After I took the body back here -"

"You WHAT?"

"- I went back into the forest and looked for you. Took me all night, but I found you, and brought you back here too."

Susie massaged her temples. "Tom, why in the nine circles of Hell did you take the body back HERE?"

Tom shrugged. "Well, I figured I could either leave it there and there'd be a big police investigation, or I could bring it back here and we could have mblmblmbl."

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Um...breakfastinbed?"

"Tom, sweetie, you know I think you're a great boyfriend, and I really like spending time with you, and breakfast in bed IS really romantic, but not when that breakfast consists of the corpse of somebody I killed last night."

Tom sat down next to Susie and put his arm around her. "Look, Suse, I know that you feel bad about this whole 'killing' thing, but for us creatures of the night, it's sometimes an inescapable fact of survival. I mean, it's not like you can kill the guy any more by eating all his tastiest organs, right?"

"I guess not..." Susie said, still in pout mode. Her stomach took the opportunity to growl as loudly as she did in wolf form. "I guess I didn't get much to eat in that forest, last night," she groused. "Okay, bring him in here."

"That's what I thought," he smiled, planting another kiss on her cheek. "I'll go get the guy, then join you." At her curious look, Tom smiled. "There has to be at least a pint or two of blood left in the guy...even if it's all congealed." Tom made a face, causing Susie to giggle.

XXXXXXXXXX

This takes place in the same universe as Blessings of the Moon by Fhujeth, in which Tom Sloane is a vampire, Susie Rowe (created by Fhujeth) is a werewolf (and also Stacy's older sister, but that's not relevant in this particular story), and they are dating at Bromwell. If you don't read her stuff, I strongly recommend it! OR ELSE.