Heeere we go guys! THIS IS IT! ...well, unless you want another chapter, then I guess I could :P Review it up peoples!

~Selene

Chapter 25

Sorina looked at him with pity in her eyes.

He had prayed that she had come to kill him, to avenge her sister, he would let her. However, he had been wrong entirely, she stood for the longest while laughing in the doorway.

Had he not already given up, Hristea knew he would have murdered her the second he felt her presence. Sorina crossed the distance between them, her fiery hair like a long drape spread about her shoulders, her slender form perfect in every way, and when she kissed him he reciprocated.

He had pondered the rivalry between the sisters for the longest time, then grew bored of it and accepted it for what it was. Lust. They were a trio of it. Now he understood it as a whole, Sorina did not come seeking retaliation, she had come because the only two competitors that she had had both been messily swept from the chess board.

She pressed herself against him, it was a very familiar feeling. There was no human in her, no heat, no blood, no sweet scent. She was dead. Hristea knew this even as her lithe fingers undid the buttons of his shirt, tore at the zipper of his pants.

Sorina's teeth broke the skin of his shoulder and Hristea groaned, there was nothing there, he kept waiting for something – anything. It frustrated him that she was not enough. His body followed her eagerly, but his mind continued to stay the same, resisting the incredible pressure Sorina put on him.

Hristea punched the wall, barely aware that his fist had gone through. She cried his name, while he crushed her between himself and the house, ignoring the sound of the old wall's protesting. And then...he was almost–

"Sawyer!"

Hristea didn't recognize the voice as his own, and still knew that somewhere, deep within his mind he hadn't seen Sorina at all. He knew when she shoved him away, snarling, running off in rapid Italian – utterly furious – that he had called the wrong name.

He couldn't help but crack a smile, it seemed uncomfortable and clumsy on his face. He hadn't smiled in a long time. Hristea considered telling Sorina that half the time he couldn't remember her name anyways, but decided against it.

She slapped him out of fury, ignorant of the fact he hadn't felt the impact.

He watched her storm out on him, unable to restrain his laughter. She had come all this way, come such a distance to fail miserably in whatever she had been so confident she would achieve. Had Sorina expected anything more?

Hristea's ego swelled and for a moment – if only a moment – he began to feel something like himself again. He considered Sorina, wondered why he couldn't want for her in the way he couldn't completely grasp. The way he had desired Sawyer.

She was beautiful. Then of course, wasn't every Undying beautiful? After all they did not possess all the blemishes that came with being human. Nor did they share the same weaknesses and he had never been plagued by an illness.

If Sorina had not been so conceited, so disturbingly captured by herself, Hristea imagined that any man would enjoy having her by his side. If that thought in itself had not so appalled him he may have actually thought it true.

Hristea sunk into his coffin, one unlike his own in Transylvania, this had been taken from the local cemetery. Hristea believed it to be no longer essential to the one who had previously occupied it.

The velvet lined coffin was snug around his shoulders, the matured fabric smelled of earth and time. His age lived within the walls of this dark wood coffin, Hristea could smell the horses, hear the rumble of steady wheels on cobble stones. He tasted the rain from a different era, heard the echoing screech of his adolescence.

Here he waited for dawn. The night called his name, beckoning him to the shadow. Hristea was restless, his body becoming a husk inside which he thrashed. Night heightened his senses, allowed them to unfurl completely.

He listened to the drone of voices, laughter, the pound of blood and the drum of hearts. Hristea felt his fangs lengthen, his Hunger rise to curl fiendishly in the back of his throat. His body shuddered with the want for it as he inhaled, so slow and so soft, yet he could practically taste the warm scent of humanity.

He grew tired as night faded and morning threatened to conquer the sky. He rose from his coffin, ears twitching to focus in on the sound of birds, the quiet hum of cars and the rumble of sleeping humans.

Lifting the lid, he gazed around the crowded space of the house he had been residing in. It smelt of him, of death, it was a scent so subtle and old that no human could distinguish it from the smell of the decaying house.

It was dark here. The floor was forever dusted by a pale filth – except in the placed where he paced, there you could see his footsteps. The wooden boards bent under his weight but did not breathe a sound. The walls slouched inward, tired of bearing the weight of the caving roof, cobwebs draped from corner to corner.

Hristea circled the room once. He had despised staying in this place, wasting away around him as it was. He could still hear the scurry of rats in the walls and clenched his teeth.

Pulling his shirt off he paced outside, he stood there, unmoving in the doorway. The colour of the sky hurt his eyes and he had to squint until they were able to adjust. Bright purples splattered against pale blues and vibrant oranges. A sea of endless colour.

Hristea tasted the shroud of dew on the air, it hung from the trees and leaned upon the blades of grass. Fog moved about the ground, cloaking the buildings and trees and houses far in the distance. And there, on the horizon, a sliver of burning red.

Hristea had to hold the doorframe to keep his body in place, every part of his being shrieking for him to run. He felt his skin tighten with a layer of goose bumps and the hairs over his body stand on end. Hristea sunk his nails into the crumbling wood, sucking in a deep shaking breath.

The muscles of his legs went into spasms, before he could stop himself he had taken a step back inside – back where he was safe. He clenched his teeth, growling low and hard as he fought his instincts in order to step back into the light.

His arms trembled, fingers twitching. It took every ounce of his strength to hold himself still. It hurt. His whole body convulsed and it hurt, he felt the ripple of vines beneath his flesh, thorns scraping on the underside of his skin, they pushed and pushed until they were free.

The sharp thuds made him flinch, thick vines digging into the doorframe, forcing his body to stay there. Hristea's fangs stabbed into the soft skin of his mouth while his knees buckled, he was panting by the time the sun gradually began to rise into full view.

He saw the abrupt sparkle spread from arm to arm then fully down his chest. It was a gleam that made him wince, like light reflecting of a million of diamonds. Closing his eyes Hristea gasped, his flesh burning.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Small arms wrapped around his waist. Warm, soft human arms. Fluttering his eyes open, Hristea peered down at the glowing being before him, then at the large white wings she wrapped around him.

The burn of the sun was gone although the fleeting heat that the nimbus had swathed him in lingered. He gaped down at the girl, hair piled over her shoulders, halfway down her torso. She gazed back up at him with vivid blue eyes but before he could even muster a sentence she was shouting.

"I can't believe you killed me!" She punched him, knuckles cracking against the bare marble of his chest. Hristea staggered back from the sudden eruption of warmth that came with her touch, he stared at her wordlessly.

"I bet Kristine is going ape shit 'cause I haven't been there for like three million years." She threw her hands up, "Why? Oh no reason I've just been, ya know – dead!"

The red sweat pants she wore, the clingy purple camisole. Sawyer. She wore the same clothes she had when he had seen her last. Hristea watched her stomp back and forth, distantly he heard her voice echoing in the house, then everything fell away.

He gawked at the markings along her arms, the violent black vines that twisted out from under the low neck of her shirt, climbing up to her jaw. They ran down her both of elbows in a wicked array, right down to the inside of her palms. On the right side of her chest lay a large black paw mark.

Hristea's mark.

His hands moved frantically, until they found the edge of his coffin, and he struggled to take his first inhale. Her skin, the colour of snow, perfection upon perfection. God, she was beautiful.

Hristea couldn't take his eyes off her wings, large wrapped in a sheath of pure white feathers. Hristea thought of his sister, of jagged, horrific looking bat wings.

While she bombed around the tight room, Hristea tried to make sense of what he was currently feeling. Something light, but evidently there formed within his chest and made it near impossible for him to breathe.

He recoiled when Sawyer's voice assaulted him once again. "...And these things?" She hissed spreading her arms out to indicate her wings. "Don't get me started on these things – you try walking through a door with these! And when I gatta like, pull them back in? Ow! You don't even want to know how that feels!"

She stopped breathing out heavily and dropped her fists on her hips. "Omigod – I finally figured out how to get out of that place, and you're just gonna like, stand there?" Her blue eyes bulged, she shook her head, the halo of her blonde hair swaying while a smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth.

He couldn't move. At long last, his thoughts and memories began to come apart. He could breathe again. In one fluent exhale he fell to the floor, leaning his head against the coffin. Gasping. His lungs throbbed, his head reeled. It felt as if he had never breathed before.

Sawyer hugged herself, making this horribly pained expression, lurching over. Hristea watched as her wings spread to their full span, slowly drawing back into her flesh, Sawyer made a sound that could have been a sharp sob.

Then they were gone, she stood up straight again, her face red. Sawyer snorted, coming over to join him where he sat. Hristea's body withdrew from the warmth she radiated, though he himself only wanted to melt into it.

The muscles in Sawyer's jaw flexed, the only indication she was clenching her teeth. It was so slight, Hristea wanted to believe himself to be the only one who could catch the movement. Her nose wrinkled just as she leaned into his bent leg, leaning her head against his knee. Hristea counted the fine hairs that fell over her right eye, it was difficult for him to focus.

She buzzed her lips together, "You're not going to say anything are you?" He watched her lips press together, the elegant curl at the corners of her mouth, the delicate curve of her bottom lip to the thin, smooth line of her upper. She was so real, so incredibly alive.

"Say something." She said through her teeth, one of her small hands landing on his chest. Hristea grimaced, positioning himself away from her.

Sawyer acted like she didn't notice. "Fine!" She swept away dramatically, "You're being a douche bag and I'm leaving again – alive this time." She swore suddenly, speaking through her teeth, "Now I gatta figure out how the hell I'm gonna get back up there. That's not fun, ya know, the whole thinking thing."

He'd never felt so slow before, so goddamn slow, it was the first time the planet surrounding him spun faster than he could take a step. The floor slipped out from beneath him, Hristea scarcely managed to wrap his arms around her before he collapsed into the black void along with the floor.

Sawyer went utterly limp in his grasp, a doll in contrast to the warm, vibrant light she had been seconds before. Hristea closed his fingers on a golden ray of radiance, one he had never imagined he could capture before.

Hristea crushed him to her, enveloping her in his arms, keeping her so close she could feel the thrum of his heart skip, then slow to match the pace of hers.

She coughed, nails biting into his flesh, a force he felt in earnest and groaned into the soft, pale skin of her neck. "Down boy!" Sawyer choked, "I-I'm an angel not a fucking teddy bear – I can't breathe!"

He held her there for a moment longer. If she faded now, he thought he'd die from the sheer pain of her absence – he would not have to exert any effort this time. Hristea was certain, that if she vanished now, now between the bands of his arms and the stone of his chest, she would take every ounce of his being with her. Every reason for living, more now than before.

When he dropped her, she whirled round to face him. She slapped him, Hristea was astounded at the brunt, he'd never been struck by a human and felt it. He shunned the emotion that rose up within him, a nameless emotion which he hadn't any time for now.

"That was for biting me not that I didn't, ya know, like it – that was a pretty sick way to go out." Sawyer pursed her lips, blue eyes narrowed while she spoke. Hristea wasn't listening to a word that fell from her mouth, merely watching the lips that formed them.

Sawyer's fist sailed into his jaw, there wasn't any pain, however the fact that she was having any form of impression on him was enough. Hristea's fangs made their descent, his body reacting to hers.

"And that?" Sawyer snapped, "Was because you didn't kiss me before. What? You think I came all the freakin' way down here to sit down, talk about the weather, drink some tea? Ugh!"

Annoyance unravelled itself in the depths of his stomach, spreading to his every dead and rotting organ. Hristea clapped his hand over her mouth, chuckling when he said, "You? An angel?" His words were laced with mockery as he shook his head at her.

In truth, the sound of his own voice frightened him in this instant. It was a sound that seemed to have evaded him in the month that had passed. He held this new feeling of fright in contempt, deep inside the heart of his being.

Sawyer's eyes ignited, she pried at his hand the words she shouted stifled by his large palm. For an instant, Hristea's eyes centered only on the pulse resting below her jaw, at the smooth vein that showed there.

He shivered.

Removing his hand, finger by finger he held her jaw between his index finger and thumb, turning her head this way and that. His mind touched hers for a moment, reading all that passed through her.

Hristea inclined towards her, Sawyer's eyelids fluttering down as she moulded herself to him. Hristea paused, eyes chasing the beauty across her features. Sawyer appeared small in his hands, an infant now more innocent than she'd ever been.

He clenched his teeth. He would ruin her if he kept her, and not even he could be so selfish as to rip her from the arms of normalcy again. Humans lived, then they died.

Quinzelle had barely lived and he had killed her.

Sawyer, still far from living anything, he had murdered her to save himself. She had returned so he could kill her again. So he could destroy her again.

Hristea could not pretend the way Dorian did. He could not give her eternity in exchange for so much, then swaddle it in an envelope of lies, sex, extravagant gifts. Hristea would not make children for Sawyer.

"What?" Sawyer opened her eyes, driving him even further away. Hristea placed a wall between their bodies, a barrier she could not cross. She blinked at him, waiting, wanting. "What?" She repeated, gleaming blue eyes shimmering with a hurt she smothered with a gloss of fury.

Hristea held his arms at his sides, then having to cross them over his chest to restrain himself. His eyes avoided hers his voice empty, precise when he murmured, "Go back."

Confusion then outrage lined Sawyer's features. "But I...I just – I gave up everything for you." She spat the words at him, stomping her foot. "I can't just go back."

Hristea's body stiffened as the floor threatened to fall out from beneath him. He winced, unsure if he was angry or upset – everything inside him told him something very different.

His instinct was to scare her, force her away from him because that was what his was, what he did. He was a monster. And yet, the tactical way to go about this was to leave her, she could not follow where he went if he went outside and burned to death. Neither of these plans agreed with the ache in his chest, an ache that made it difficult to think or breathe.

"I know but-" She didn't let him finish.

"No, Hristea, you don't know!" Sawyer shouted, the house becoming tighter. Her voice trembled, she began to struggle with her choice of words as an extremely frightening, extremely new person began to make themselves known. "They're not just going to let me in again, this wasn't just some choice I could make and then waltz right the fuck back if it didn't work out. I-"

What was that? What was she doing? It made his head spin, his whole upper body erupting in a series of unstoppable torture. Sawyer inhaled, even that was staggered, her bottom lip quivering.

Then came this awful noise, this abrupt hiccup that had Hristea trembling.

Wrath gleamed in her brilliant blue eyes, then as quickly as she had blinked something else showed. "Don't do that." Hristea hissed, clutching at his chest. "Sawyer, stop it!"

"What?" She screamed, her tone shattering an octave, the shrill noise stabbing into his ears. "Cry? My bad, that's k-k-kind of what people do when they're, ya know, up-upset."

Crying. This was bad. Crying represented pain, anguish, rage. Human's who became unstable with their emotions cried. Why did it hurt him so badly? As far as Hristea knew, he had cried once and only once in his existence. Seeing Sawyer do it now seemed so much worse than that.

A million images flashed behind his eyes. Dorian cradling Analeigh when she cried. His father holding Emilia while she wept over their brother's absence. Sawyer as a young girl, a man, unfamiliar to Hristea, running his fingers through her hair and pressing his lips to her forehead.

Hristea approached her with open arms, Sawyer laughed sardonically at him as she backed away. She shook her head, blonde tresses scattering about her slim shoulders. "Don't touch me." Hristea took another step, reaching her before she could retreat again.

Sawyer screamed into his chest, crying out a chain of profanities as she pushed him away again and again. Hristea hesitated at the sight of her wings, she could launch him through the wall if she wanted to using those.

Holding his breath he encroached her again, a hand out stretched as long, bloodied vine pushing out from his wrist. Sawyer sniffled, eyeing the vine as it turned to a stem, ceasing to grow from his flesh. Hristea held the orchid in his hand, offering it hopefully.

His fangs fell over his bottom lip, while her fingers closed around the smooth stem, pulling the flower from his hand. "That was really gross." Sawyer breathed, Hristea blowing out a weighty breath when she rushed to his awaiting arm.

Hristea watched the wound in his flesh mend with ease. "I just..." He couldn't finish his sentence, secreting his face in the silken cloud of her hair. He wound his arms securely around her waist, Sawyer's hands held between their chests.

Coiling his fingers in the soft, baby curls that hung around the back of her neck, he tilted her head back. "I missed you." The words were spoken against her lips before he slanted his mouth over hers.

Sawyer sighed, sinking into him. This kiss was different, Hristea held nothing back, receiving that unforgettable whisper of a moan in the back of Sawyer's throat. And as she tried to tie her arms around his neck, Hristea realized that he would never have to kiss her good bye again.