Do I need to say this anymore? Teehee, I dedicate/half credit this chapter- and all the rest of them for good measure- to my friend, Swiftypup. I couldn't be who I am today if you weren't my frwiend.
But I'm not here to make an acceptance speech. Here, all my faithful readers, is the next chapter of the Silver/Dan affair. Hope that it's up to your standards:
Dan slowly got up, biting his lip in pain. He moaned.
Silver fought the urge to help him up. Knowing him, he'd probably hate her for trying to be nice.
"You okay?"
"Not really. But I'll live."
Silver looked into a corner of the room. She shivered when she saw ashes, knowing that had been an arm two minutes ago.
She bit off the urge to throw up again.
"UGH!" Dan suddenly screamed. "GOD DAMN IT!"
His voice was so sharp and brutal; Silver winced against it, looking instead at the cold, stone walls.
"We have to go," his voice was quiet now. Maybe he had realized he was scaring Silver; maybe he had just worn his voice out.
"Were?"
Silver looked back at Dan, but forced herself not to look at the dead Lycan underneath him. "To Selene's. Now. Before things get out of hand."
He held up his own hand, where a half- square bite mark lay fused with his skin, bleeding slightly as the outer edges of the angry pink flesh puckered.
And Silver remembered another legend: If a werewolf bites you, you become one.
Two hours later, Silver was footsore, hungry, and not in a good mood. She muttered curses under her breath with every unwilling step she took.
Dan was a few yards ahead, and he would look back every few seconds and tell her to hurry up, which would make her feet hurt more, and she would curse again and again and again.
It didn't help that it was nearly dawn, and that the forest was so dense she could barely breathe. The pine trees surrounding them keep whacking her with their whip-like branches, and the pine needles covering the ground kept getting into her socks, and her feet were swollen and bleeding from many puncture wounds.
Her stomach was hurting more than it had before, and she was feeling weak. That, along with her fraying nerves and Dan yelling at her, she was about to either collapse or scream herself hoarse from anger and pain.
And after a while, she just collapsed, no energy left for a scream.
"Da-" the rest of her whisper was muted by dirt, which filled her mouth disgustingly. She lifted her head just enough to spit it out.
"Silver?" Dan was quickly by her side, trying to help her. His cold, delicate fingers were around her forearm in a flash, making sure she was both all right and conscious.
Silver lay there, staring out of the corner of her eye up at the indigo sky. She had no idea what was wrong with her. Her stomach was tearing itself to pieces, but she was barely aware of it. Her senses were dulling, and she was tired.
So, so tired……
Something was pouring over her. Something really cold.
Burning cold.
But Silver couldn't open her eyes, move, she could barely even breathe.
"Silver, you need to get up, please." Dan's voice was concerned, desperate. "You need to help me out here. Just do this one tiny thing, and you can go back to sleep, okay, sweetie? You need to open your mouth."
If Silver had been fully conscious, she would have thought more of how he had called her 'Sweetie'. But she was barely alive, and it took all the strength she had left to obey his command.
She succeeded in prying her mouth a few centimeters apart, and Dan muttered some encouragement. Though Silver couldn't see, Dan slit his wrist quickly and pressed it over Silver's mouth, who let the deliciously hot liquid trickle down her throat.
A half minute later, Dan removed his wrist from her mouth, and Silver begged for more in her mind. She thought she was getting more when there was a new pressure on her lips, but she only tasted Dan's breath. Before she knew it, she had drifted into unconsciousness.
Dan sat there for a few seconds longer, his lips on hers, before he pulled away and leaned against a tree, staring at the coming dawn with thoughts racing through his mind faster than he could comprehend.
He didn't have to kiss her. She would have fallen asleep anyway. But while she was weak and on the line separating life and death, he had to do something. And now that he shared his blood willingly, that his blood ran through her parched veins, that Dan himself ran through her very being, he figured things would change very much.
Before he had told her he was not her friend. Now he was the one wanting to be so much more.
Her eyes flashed open, and he was not surprised that they were ice blue. That happened when vampires were feeding or about to attack.
He smiled weakly at her. She wasn't extremely pretty, but the vampire in her was kicking in; she was getting paler and paler every day. And he was falling more and more in love with her as the seconds passed.
Silver smiled back and tried to get up, but she found that her arms and legs wouldn't support her. She looked apologetically at Dan and whispered breathlessly, "Why do…I feel so…horrible?" She couldn't get enough air in her lungs, and her head was spinning.
"You were about to die. Again. We need to get you to feed, now." He picked her up, his arm around her waist, hers slung over his shoulders.
They hobbled a few feet before Silver shook her head weakly. "This isn't…going to work…"
Dan had known all along, but he still wanted to try and get her moving; the new blood in her system needed to be circulated.
He set Silver down next to a fallen log, and she leaned on it tiredly, her eyes started to drift closed.
"No, you stay awake." He shook her shoulders gently, and from his wrist- which had healed extremely quickly, if not completely- tiny flakes of dried blood fluttered and speckled Silver's shirt, and she watched them longingly with narrowed eyes.
Once more, Dan kneeled in front of Silver and cut his wrist with a fingernail. Silver's eyes widened with both shock and hunger.
"That looks… I want…"
And she drank more, watching nothing but Dan's face.
She couldn't recognize his expression.
Pleasure?
Again, Daniel Midnight watched her sleep later that night.
He had let her drink more than he should have; now he was feeling weak.
Letting out a sigh, he leaned back against a tree as he wished that he, too, could fall asleep.
He almost did too, but a stir from Silver jerked him awake. What time was it? From the position of the moon, almost midnight. Shit, he thought, rubbing a hand over his face. "Silver sweetie, wake up. Silver?"
A tiny smirk formed on her face; though she kept her eyes closed. "You called me sweetie." Her voice was barely audible.
He laughed quietly and put his arm around her waist. "Yeah, I did. Now, silly, you have to wake up. I have to go somewhere."
"Where?"
He bit his lip, wondering whether or not to tell her. He had to go get something before they both died.
"Somewhere, Silver."
Her eyes opened into tiny slits, and she regarded him quickly. "You're not going to tell me."
"No. Not now. You'll know when I get back."
And then he was gone.
Silver closed her eyes and wished for sleep to close around her again, but it didn't. She almost could feel it laughing at her. And then she remembered the voice, the one that had given her facetious advice her first day as a vampire, and wondered why it hadn't talked to her in a while.
Not that she was sad about that. She was very happy that it had decided to go elsewhere. But right now, in this quiet place, she wanted to talk to talk to someone.
Where am I anyway? Silver thought, the tone of hysteria appearing even in her mind. Would Dan bring me somewhere, abandon me, and leave me to die?
"Of course not," Silver mumbled out loud to herself. No, Dan wouldn't, of course not. Not the Dan that gave her his own blood…not the Dan that…
Kissed her?
Was that a dream?
Was she crazy?
Yes, she decided. She was crazy.
But it had all really happened.
