"The human girl is intriguing to you." Verona stated as she entered our main library.

I knew this was coming. I knew she would notice no rotting corpses in the dungeons and that she would be looking for them. "Don't start." I warned in the voice that Vlad used often to convey a threat that would easily be met.

"I wasn't starting anything, Aleksei. I'm just surprised is all."

"Don't be." I paused, closing the book with no more interest in it than I had the previous minute. "She will be dead on the morrow."

She snickered quite deviously and I almost threw my book at her. But keeping my calm and remembering that she, above all others, was my mother, I clutched onto the book firmly. She had kept me from changing so quickly into the man she was bound to forever—until death justly parted her. Even then death wouldn't part them. The bond of vampires was life altering, more so than loosing it in the first place. It could never be broken; the connection was linked in death. In hell Verona would wait or vice versa, the bond burning as if it had never left.

"Is that why you haven't done it yet?" Verona asked quietly. I had been off daydreaming that I forgot she would listen into what I was thinking about. I shifted uncomfortably in the chair realizing how very much I was uncomfortable with everything.

"Aleera should not be tied to a man who cannot love her. Vlad is—the best opportunity she will receive." I was careful not to show her the selfish jealousy that racked throughout my brain at the thought. Standing quickly, my back to her, I made my way up to the second level of the library by simply leaping up on gilded invisible wings. My bones ached to be released of their human flesh, for a change in the wind to happen so I could go and hunt. I thought of hunting with my mother and for once I didn't want to. It wasn't something I would enjoy. I wished to do it alone.

My thoughts suddenly wandered to the girl locked upstairs and the hunger she must have. It had been three days since her arrival and she must have been on the verge of starvation. Quickly, without thinking of the movements my feet took to leap down and out the library, I rummaged throughout the entire castle for bread. We had to have some just in case Vlad wanted to make one of his prey feel welcome within the vacant castle before taking their life. I felt as if my heart would burst while I brought the stale bread and wine to her knowing that she would be hungrier than a pit full of lions. I wondered silently if she would attack me and laughing, I reached her door. Listening, I wove my hands into the doorknobs and burst through the doors hoping to surprise her. Instead she merely glanced up from something in her hands.

I shut the doors without even touching them and gracefully presumed a place by the side of her musty bed. Really, how did this place get so dirty? Everything else was homely, worn in by our constant use in our fastidious boredom. Hmmm…she would have to be moved.

No. She was my food and would die soon. What was the point?

"Here." I growled shoving the food on a silver platter in her face. Her eyes lifted up to look at me from beneath her dark hood of lashes; they asphyxiated on me. "Well? Aren't you hungry?"

"Yes, thank you." She took the plate from my hands, her skin brushing up against mine. Where she had touched me it burned madly. Her fingertips were forever imprinted there, molded with her burning flame. I noticed that her breath caught but she continued to set down the plate and tear off a piece of bread. She picked it so finely and so delicately that for a moment I believed something was wrong with her. Shouldn't she be gobbling this down? But her moan of enjoyment sent me shrills. She enjoyed hard bread. Iraina was turning out to a very humble and odd girl.

Backing away slowly I was able to keep my watch over her. She sipped the wine and ate every crumb on her plate. And when she was done, she removed her cross-legged position from the bed and gratefully returned the platter to my hands. Into them it gently dropped her smile brightening the room. My head spun. "You are quite kind, sir. I thank you."

"W-why?" I stumbled. My words never stumbled.

Iraina's head cocked to the side as her long hair went with it caressing the air with her scent. I inhaled with a burning sensation in my veins. Delicious. Absolutely and irrevocably intriguing. "I do not know what you mean, sir."

"Aleksei. Call me Aleksei."

She was confused by my sudden kindness not realizing she had just become the target of my obsessive need for her blood. My eyes were cobalt black now, thicker and richer than any night she had ever witnessed. My fangs were growing, reaching down to my bottom lip. I couldn't help it…I wanted her.

"Aleksei." My name was so light on her tongue as if she had always spoken it. Her lips formed the word with love, affection, and heartbreakingly human emotions I couldn't place. My appeal to her was quickening and the fact that she wore peasant's clothes or was from a farming family meant nothing. She suddenly no longer fit the word "it" or "girl" but beautiful, creamy, luscious woman named Iraina.

My left hand inclined passionately towards her neck and the other towards her waist. Clutching her with my immortal strength, her blood raced beneath my hands, her heart flying at a new pace instead of its calm wavelengths. The beating of her heart filled my ears drowning out her small whimper of fear. She should fear me. I was about to end her life…this pretty thing was going to be drained dry.

My lips found her neck and instantly the pulse sent miraculous vibrations into my cold skin. My fangs nipped at her skin producing two small puncture wounds that oozed so slowly I could watch it for hours run down her neck. My reasoning was no where in sight. I wanted this woman.

As my teeth inclined to strike a thought flashed through me of what she would appear like in my arms once this was over. She would be limp—lifeless—completely still. I would no longer be frustrated into fascination and have nothing to do. Aleera would continue to bother me. Verona would sigh sadly…

My hands let go and onto the floor she fell. Receiving a bruise was nothing compared to the death that had almost held her in its clutches. She scampered from me towards the other side of the room, her eyes wide with curiosity and a hint of fear. "You stopped." Iraina's lips had barely moved and yet I had heard her. "You didn't kill me and yet you promised you would…"

"I know." I didn't have to answer her but I did feel a bit smug at my control. I had done that with other victims, this control, but never had I pulled myself back from being so close to killing.

"Thank you, Aleksei."

"For?"

She licked her lips nervously, uncertain. "For granting me one more day."

I was speechless at her demeanor after being so nearly finished in life. Iraina would have been freed from the hardness of her life. Life was much more…difficult to deal with.

There we both stood, staring across the room at each other with such a mix of emotions it was unclear as to who was thinking what.

"I have to kill you, Iraina." My insides quivered at the way my lips uttered her name.

"I know." She mimicked my words.

Taking an unsure step I advanced as sluggish as a human until I stood on the opposite side of the bed from her. "You fascinate me." I hadn't meant to say the words out loud but there they were dripping onto the ground with uncertainty of its outcome.

"Is that why you haven't killed me yet?" She said the words as if they meant nothing. Like her death was just an event that was only a fraction of what mattered to her.

"Yes. No. I—" My lips sealed in a tight line. I could not give an answer. Looking down I spotted the object that had been in her hands when I entered. A book lay innocently on the dirty sheets. My handkerchief was quickly drawn and placing it beside the book I turned to leave..

"Please. Don't leave me alone."

I glanced back at her over my shoulder to see her arm outstretched, her long fingers reaching for me. Turning back towards my exit, I left Iraina without another glance.