Chapter 10:

"What happened to you this morning?" she asked as she brought a plate piled with food to him. His appetite had become insatiable nowadays, she had noticed. He didn't show it to anyone else, but whenever they were alone, he was eating not just his food, but most of hers too.

"Nothing." He said absently without touching the food as he lay back on the couch, running his hands over his face.

"Tyler!"

He lowered his hands and looked at her.

"Nothing… really."

He stood up and walked to the window, his food abandoned. He gave her his back and stood there, looking out at nothing.

She waited him out, knowing that he was more likely to take her question seriously if she wasn't her usual chatty self.

And finally he did, although what he asked startled her enough that she dropped the fork that she had been holding in her hand.

"Is a werewolf bite fatal to a vampire?" his tone was low and steady as he asked.

He didn't turn around at the clang of the fork, although she was sure that he took it as an affirmation.

She walked away from him into the kitchen under the pretense of acquiring a new fork, although even that time wasn't enough to think up a good excuse or answer for his question.

Once she came back with a new fork and resumed her stance, leaning against the side table, she discovered that he was using the same tactic as her. He was waiting her out.

"Yes." She finally said, quietly.

He slammed a fist against the ledge of the window so hard that she jumped from the memory of her human reflexes.

"What the hell?" she was near him in a flash, looking at his now bleeding knuckles.

He did not give the blood or the wound any consideration as he asked again, his voice lower than before. "When did you know?"

She hadn't realized that he had been angry all this time.

She started to walk away from him, but he pulled her back in agitation.

"When the hell did you know?" he was practically yelling now as he forced her against the wall.

"Calm down. Tyler, calm down." She held a hand against his chest so that he wouldn't ram her against the wall like he had done that first time when he had accused her of being a werewolf and had broken one of her mother's paintings.

"I want an honest answer, Caroline. Don't fuck around. When did you know?" he asked again, backing away a millimeter to appease her.

She found that she couldn't look him in the eye for this answer. She didn't want it to come across as some martyr mission of hers where she had foolishly put her life – non-life – at risk for someone who wasn't even all that close to her. That just had teenage drama and angst written all over it. As if she didn't realize the value of life – even an existence such as hers.

"I knew before, alright. But it's not like what you think. I…" She said quickly and looked up briefly to see his response. She was alarmed when she saw his eyes turn, the pupils dilating into large dark orbs and the iris turning a dense green and expanding so quickly that the white disappeared completely. His face contorted in pain as he suddenly clutched his head. On impulse, she brought up her hands to stroke his forehead. His eyes opened in surprise and his hands fell away and she moved her palms over to hold them on either side of his head. His eyes changed back slowly from the beast to Tyler and all the while his gaze was trained on hers.

She had figured it out over the past two weeks, of course. She just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it. For whatever reason, her touch eased his pain; not metaphorically, but literally… Seeing in now full-fledged – watching the easing of his forehead, the deep groves around his eyes, and the tension in his jaw – brought forth a genuine burst of happiness as she had not experienced in a long while. There was something tremendously healing in giving. She smiled in that way she had only done once or twice in her life; in pure joy.

She hadn't seen it coming – even with her vampire and human reflexes combined, she hadn't seen it coming. He kissed her suddenly, the surprise of it making her lose her balance, trapped as she was between the window and him. It only made him hold her around the waist to steady her and bring her back to him to kiss her again.

She had done her fair share of kissing before, humans and even a vampire, but it was the first time that she thought that one could be burned alive by a single kiss… that just a few moments of mouth to mouth could torch your body and soul in equal measure. Vampire or no vampire, her heart didn't care at the moment as it tried to prove all the myths of the bloodsuckers wrong and tried to beat its way out of her chest. Her skin caught on fire... It was too much… he was too much… this was too much… everything between them was too much…

She pushed him away at last when she thought she would melt like a wax-doll left in the Sahara heat.

He was breathing hard as he stood there staring at her.

"I have to go." He said finally, running his hand over the back of his neck and turning around to the sofa.

"Yes, you should." She heard her own soft reply and watched him grab his bag and leave, unable to move from where he had left her. She touched her lips and thought for sure that they were singed.