(apologies to my readers about how short my chapters have been. Hopefully this chapter is okay and makes up for the garbage my hands haven't been able to conjure over the passed year. I'll be making updates to my previous chapters to refine this story and give it more structure).

Chapter Nine – Silver Tongue

There it was, the room he remembered spending very little time in – the dining room.

The mansion was big and old, sure, but Kaname Kuran didn't spend much time in much of the house but specific locations inside of it.

He wasn't a fan of the mausoleum, as he spent a few millennia too long there.

During his time inside of his lonely coffin, his sleeping state was accompanied with dream like occurrences as well.

Within his dreams he relived the bitternesses of his initial life with the woman most identified as the hooded woman.

The sadness from those days still seemed to be carried with him, even now.

He didn't know how to process life, even now.

All his time was spent in a state of sleep, barely alive, during all time one would consider him alive.

His thoughts were interrupted.

"Kaname, are you still hurting", Yuuki carefully asked.

The entire time he's been around her he seemed off put.

That made her sad since she'd longed for this day since forever.

Forever couldn't measure to how long she'd felt it had been during those long years with something large missing from your life.

Kaname's dark crimson eyes moved their way toward the slender Yuuki, slouched over, standing before him.

Her innocent like stance reminded him of her from "yesterday".

In finding herself, she lost who she pretended to be, and in that discovery, she became what she once was.

Perhaps…?

She couldn't forget who she had been all those years, obviously, but the piece that lived on in Kaname was finally returned which gave Yuuki a new life.

"I don't know where I came by all of these burdens, Yuuki", he answered in an equally careful tone that matched Yuuki's.

"You could just tell me…"

"Tell you what"?

The sad expression they both carried were almost unignorable.

"I'd… I bet my life on you, Kaname", she said.

Kaname didn't understand.

"For so long, Kaname-Sama, I waited for you. You not being here with us, Kaname, I've never been able to forget it. You were always in the back of my mind. I knew if you came back, that I'd be alive again".

"Yuuki… what"?

"The day I saw your heart being charred away at by the flames destroyed me. I lost my heart that day, too".

"No, Yuuki…"

"The day we held your 'funeral', Kaname… was the day I died, too".

Yuuki's head was brought down to parallel the floor, as she lost her ability to hold it together.

She fell into a crouch, her arms and face clashing with the floor as she cried.

Startled by the unexpected, Kaname rushed to comfort her.

He felt her pain, suddenly.

His initial sentence due to the ancestors had been served and the debt satisfied.

He no longer had to carry the heaviness of the expectations.

Right now, he could realise all of what it was he suppressed before his thousand-year sleep.

Now, maybe, he thought, was time to grab hold of what he'd always denied himself.

He grabbed for Yuuki.

In the sadness she felt, the puny vampire girl was glad he cared enough to grab for her.

She wanted to feel him.

He brought the sobbing vampire to his collar bone, and glided his long hands through her hair, entwining the strands of brunette together.

They fell flawlessly like fine columns of silk.

Yuuki in turn brought her cries to a sob as she gave into the chance to feel Kaname.

She brought her thin arms around her God.

Kaname was always going to be her pillar.

He gave her life structure.

Never before did she ever question why he was what he was to her.

Something about him was vital to her existence, she felt.

Everything he felt and desired was extremely important to her.

It wasn't for him, but for herself.

She was selfish.

She wanted him all to herself.

She wanted to devour him.

She wanted to become one with him.

She wanted to possess his soul.

She wanted to be everything he ever thought about.

She didn't care, though, that she was being greedy.

It was a feeling that just felt so right, demanding a claim as bold as the one she had.

It was almost promised to her the day she was born, as if she were made just for him.

She wanted to bathe in his lips and his blood.

Yuuki's emotional heart and the carnal heart both screamed for their right to Kaname in his emotional and carnal aspects.

He was happy to oblige, kind of.

Kaname didn't necessarily want to die.

He wanted his consciousness to be satisfied with contentment.

He didn't exactly believe in happiness but couldn't say he never experienced it before.

It was more along the lines of what he knew could bring him happiness but would take a lot to achieve and more than likely would never happen.

Something about Yuuki made him want to strive again.

It was so wonderful, to feel at home in Kaname's arms.

With only a bit of time passing since the legendary reunion, every moment felt as if it could be the last, and that they all had to be savored.

Inclined to bend to the scream of what whispered in her veins, Yuuki instinctively followed the smell that pulsed through Kaname.

"Are you still hurting"? She asked again, as she begun to feel hazily drunk as she smelled the live force that Kaname was.

Barely listening, she followed her craving and made her way to the nape of his neck, right before his shoulder.

She bit into the trapezius muscle with no kindness in mind.

Her bite slid through the skin protecting his blood and accessed him.

His warm existence curled around her tongue as she sucked and gulped from the opening she made in his neck.

"MMM", she choked, draining more of him.

Kaname made no fuss, nor did he show any signs of resistance or pain.

"Please, Yuuki… take all of me"…

She brought herself to her rational mind and stared up at him as he stared back.

It was almost intense, but not quite.

"I want you", she said, pulling his head down toward her face.

He didn't fight, and instead helped along.

Instead of sitting around and being guided, he decided it was time to finally find his free will again and act on it.

He took in her scent.

It was oh, oh so sweet.

I need MORE of this, he thought, as Yuuki aggressively grabbed at his hair.

She began to breathe hard as her beloved clashed their lips together.

Yuuki was going for this initially and was somewhat taken by surprise he did it first.

She leaned into it and wielded herself completely to him.

She was happy to offer herself up to him, however he would decide to go about consuming her.

She wouldn't mind dying at Kaname's hands.

He continued to hold her head in place as he satisfied himself with her face.

Blood, the internal voice of instinct chided, we must consume… everything.

Elsewhere.

An ominous presence lurked in the stillness of the Kuran mansion but no one was aware of it.

It was cold, but careful not to let anyone know it was lurking about the halls, hidden.

No one would be aware until it was ready for its intentions to unfold.

In another place…

The dark haired Ai paced slowly back and forth before the fireplace.

By now, it was around dusk.

There were cries coming from outside, almost like that of a cicada.

Before the fireplace was a large lounging couch in the colour of burgundy, and on top of it was Ren.

He was comfortably lounging about as he continued to watch his sister, who seemed annoyed.

She kept going over the scenario of earlier events in her head, and they were annoying her.

She couldn't for the life of her come up with an excuse for her mother and how she acted earlier.

In all her days, Ai couldn't recall her mother acting quite like that.

Yuuki was like a child to Ai.

She was immature in many ways that Ai was not, and almost felt like her mother sometimes.

She just hissed at herself as she recalled the situation.

"I don't understand", she growled at herself.

"Ai, you're doing it again", Ren said, not getting through to the angry Ai.

"I've always noticed a mysterious longing for that man from my mother, but I guess I never thought she'd be this way…"

She paused in her steps.

Turning to Ai, she opened her mouth again, but no words escaping, lost to another idea.

She quickly jumped to the empty space next to Ren.

"I feel like mother has lost something", she stated.

"Well, I can agree to that", the confused Ren nodded.

He ran his hands through his hair and let out a sigh much like that of Zero.

He used to do that a lot too, Ai thought.

"Maybe we're not meant to understand this", Ai sighed, as it annoyed her regardless of what she was and was not meant to understand.

She just wanted answers, how difficult was it to receive those!?

"Stop whining, Ai", Ren demanded, giving off an irritated look.

He straightened up his collar and removed himself from his sister's grasp.

"I swear, you worry yourself too much about things that aren't necessarily your business", he scolded, fixing up his hair and bringing himself to a stand.

He personally wasn't in the mood to deal with Ai's childish worries this evening.

She took it as an insult but let him go on his way.

Did she put nose where it didn't belong too much?

Maybe she mothered her own mother too often.

Ren was right, she needed to back off of Yuuki.

Instead, perhaps it was time to try and develop something with this creature she'd seen as her father her entire life but never actually met.

Ai knew she needed to keep an open mind regardless of how opposed her internal monologue screamed the opposite to her.

Perhaps it was that everything everyone knew had been corrupted by a new presence.

It was once a vital piece to the puzzle, but when it went missing, though it was still desired, the evolution and adaption of the puzzle no longer had a spot that fit the vital piece.

Perhaps the vital piece needed to be forced into place.

Ai thought about it that way for a bit of time.

She saw Ren the way Yuuki saw Kaname.

Relating to that, Ai came to reason.

Sure, it was difficult to bend to new ideas.

It was normally difficult to anyone that's never had to deal with change.

Kaname was a hurricane of disturbance.

For now, Ai welcomed it.

Our Queen…

In another dark corner of the house were the originals that served Kaname during his years with Yuuki.

In the sitting pace was Hanabusa Aido, Senri Shiki, Akatsuki Kain, Takuma Ichijo, Rima Toya, and Ruka Souen, and they all looked the same as they did so many years ago.

Blessed with high quality blood of their own, they wouldn't show signs of aging for many years to come, more than likely.

Anyways.

"I've gathered you all here, because… I'm worried", Hanabusa stood before them, dressed in formal attire.

They all were dressed fancy.

Shiki and Ruka were next to each other, then was Ruka and Kain.

Ichijo was the last to the left, giving the open window a quick take.

The moon was bright and in a random phase insignificant to the evening.

They all then faced their friend with respect.

There was an uncanny and unsettling feeling about the room.

"What's wrong, Hanabusa"? Ichijo asked.

Hanabusa scratched the back of his head nervously.

"With the return of our Lord Kaname, I feel there may be a second uprising…"

Ichijo glanced back out the window.