Author's Notes: Holy cow! I say how excited I am to have reached 600 views and when I wake up I have over 850! You are all amazing.

Chapter Ten

Yui sat on the cold brick, snipping off the stem of a perfect white rose. After a few trims to the stem, it joined a small pile at her side. It was silly, she knew, but she wanted some sort of beauty to remain in her life even while those around her took such glee in stripping her of any happiness she might have bore in another home.

They had all had a turn at her, all except Subaru. Yui wondered if he would ever sink as low as his brothers. He had urged her to leave, and he had given her the knife, maybe he alone would continue to want only her blood. Wet tears tumbled down her cheeks, making the cold air sting her. How was she supposed to bear being passed from one to the other and submitted to their individual brands of torture again and again? At least in a few days she would start her period and they would all leave her alone for a few days. Something about the smell of that particular blood seemed to keep them at bay.

Releasing another rose from the wild bush, Yui examined it. Roses were funny in that at a distance they looked so pristine but up close almost every one had some sort of small hole or tear from the thorns of the bush. She wondered if it was the same for her, if when she went to school the people around her couldn't see the holes. She wondered if they just ignored them.

"They will kill you." The blonde jerked, catching her finger on a thorn and dropping the bloodied stem. She turned and found mismatched eyes glaring down at her. It was as if he had known she was thinking of him.

"Subaru-kun…" She stood and faced him, unafraid. What was it about him that put her so at ease? He had fed from her too, after all.

"You have to leave at the next new moon." His voice was commanding and cold as it pushed through the night air to reach her.

"Why? What will happen if I don't?" He knew something, something he didn't want to tell her, and as always her need to understand took precedence over her well-being.

"They will only hurt you further, get hungrier and rougher until one of them kills you. You don't know what effect your blood has." His eyes traveled to her injured finger and froze there.

"Why is this happening?" She took a step forward and Subaru backed away from her, his eyes never leaving the wound.

"You think this is the first time it's happened? They've fucked other brides, and they've murdered them in the process. We've all had blood on our hands." His voice held pain, more pain than he should ever have to bear, and she longed to embrace him and provide him comfort. She took another step forward and his eyes creased into a scowl. "Stay away from me! Don't you realize I am as dangerous as they are?"

"You're not! You're kind and considerate." Why couldn't he see the good in himself?

"I could break you!" As if to prove the point he rushed forward and grabbed at her roughly, pulling her neck to his mouth. "I could kill you here, and you would be powerless to stop me. Just as you are powerless to stop me from taking your blood."

"Subaru...you're hurting me." She winced as the tightness of his embrace left her struggling to breathe. He released her slightly and bit into her neck, drinking hungrily as she writhed in his arms. Finally he pulled away, his eyes full of self-hatred.

"If I tell you why they are doing this, will you go?" His voice was strangely small, conflicted even. Maybe he didn't want her to leave.

"Please tell me Subaru-kun." He released her and sat on the brick walkway, motioning for her to do the same. She obliged.

"Laito was first, wasn't he? That part is no surprise. It's always Laito or Kanato first."

"Kanato? But I thought he hadn't…" Subaru tutted a half-chuckle, surprising Yui.

"Why would you think that? Kanato has killed more brides in his passion than any of us." That didn't make sense. Kanato had sounded so innocent when he said he'd seen… Yui's eyes traveled the grout between the bricks, trying to discern his real meaning.

"He said, when he was… he said he'd seen what to do."

"And you took that to mean he hadn't tried it. Kanato is dangerous, perhaps more than the rest of us. Cordelia broke him when she would lay with her partners in front of him. Even Laito." Yui gasped, their own mother had… with her son… in front of her other son. How could any woman be so cruel? "Laito is broken for it too. She discarded him and he was locked away by our father for what she had done to him. He loved her, and so he killed her. To murder is the ultimate act of love for us.

Yui's eyes widened and she felt sick as she remembered a question posed to her by Laito months prior. "Do you know how it feels to love someone so much that you hate them?" She remembered his heartfelt soliloquy on the rooftop, declaring his love for the woman who had abused him. He had said he loved her once too, in the basement as he sucked from her thigh. How could he even understand love after that?

"It's always one of them that snaps first. Sometimes the bride is lucky and she dies that night, before the rest can smell her."

"Smell her?" Yui was pulled back from her thoughts of Laito and into the conversation at hand.

"A mortal experiencing pleasure releases pheromones. We are all able to smell them. After one of us has taken her, his scent remains as well. You can scrub until you bleed and there will still be a trace of each of them. I can smell them through your skin even now." Yui thought back, recalling how each of them had made her bathe after Ayato.

"Don't worry, I won't fuck you yet. You wanted a bath."

"You reek of him."

"Please, go take a shower so I can stand the smell of you"

"We are possessive predators, solitary hunters, and the smell of another on your prey makes you wild with need to mark that prey as yours. It's instinctual." Subaru continued, unaware of her racing thoughts. "And so each of them marks her, and makes the next take her more roughly in his declaration of dominance. Finally one of us breaks her, hurts her too badly or takes too much blood, and she falls."

He was right.

She had to run.