Author Note: Sorry it took me so long , guys! You have my utmost apologies. I was just about to finish the last chapter when I became grounded due to school grade . But I have managed to finally finish it and here you go! Enjoy!

Chapter 8: Trusting the Damned





Years passed on. Years turned to decades, decades to centuries. Time meant nothing to the immortal, and yet it was everything. D traveled the world on the back of a dark horse, though as experience soon taught him, it was better to use a horse part robotic. Such a beast could run faster without tiring, less prone to attack against creatures of the night looking for an easy meal and it didn't need the constant care a normal horse on the road did. But this still didn't satisfy D.

Centuries later, he chanced upon some information concerning his mother. He learned that what his father told him was a lie, that in fact she had not died by childbirth, but she had died soon after he was born. By Vampire hands.

According to all the talk of historians and text books, the Aristocratic Vampires could not bare the fact that their King choose a filthy human as his bride when he was surrounded by so many beautiful etiquette Vampiresses. Not all of the Vampires knew this though, only a selected few. They had known that the son of Dracula was part human. This made him weak in their eyes and unworthy. One Vampiress in particular. She had so longed to be the Queen of Vampires, to have the love of their Lord and bare a powerful child. When she heard of this news, she was outraged and insulted.

So as rumor had it, she had her dark companions kill the human beauty and kill the child. They never got around to killing the child for they were killed themselves. Unfortunately for her, Dracula didn't search for a new bride like she had wanted. The child was still alive and there was nothing she could do about it.

This only made D hate Vampires even more and he vowed he would hunt them from the Earth.

The cursed demon in him however, proved to be kind of a side affect against the Vampires. Though it was clearly his curse, he aided him on his quest for hunting them. The symbiot was filled with knowledge, though whether he wanted to share it was to D's annoyance. Indeed a parasite, it was a helpful one.

And that's as he remembered it. Now, gazing out this window, he felt tired once more, and he welcomed it.

He yearned for human sleep. The young girl Araydia had been fast asleep hours ago, and as D turned around, he saw her lying there.

She was an outcast among her own kind much like him, but she held so much promise. She had a future, and she would be soon reunited with her family. And being so annoying in the daytime, she seemed so peaceful in her sleep, as though nothing could harm her, as though nothing wanted to disturb her. By now after calmly rolling over in her sleep, the blanket had slipped away from her curled up frame and she lay there shivering.

D moved forward to pull the blanket back over her, thinking nothing of it, but she turned over again, her face towards the light of the window.

By now most of the lights in the town had turned off, all except for the street lamps which would always remain on out of fear, but now, the moon was sinking low. Her lips were slightly parted and her thick lashes quivering from a bad dream. The moonlight shown across her glossy raven hair, giving it a bluish tint, and her pale skin all the more brilliant. She was a girl on the verge of becoming a woman.

To D, nothing seemed more beautiful than a woman with the spark of youth and promise in her eyes. It was enough to make him wish he wasn't who he was and stay there, but then he kicked himself internally once more for thinking such ridiculous thoughts. You can't change who you are.

Ray whimpered slightly in her dream and her eyebrows knitted together. D's powerful frame stood over her like a shadow and he gently leaned down to brush away the stray locks covering her face.

Shocked, Araydia felt something touch her in her sleep as if wanting to devour her and she shot up like a bullet, clutching the hand to the monster.

She dug her nails into it's skin and repressed the urge to scream when she saw it was only D. Not a monster that wanted to devour her, but a strange man halfway leaning over her bed with her clutching his hand and not letting go.

"D?" Araydia stared at him with wide, horrified blue eyes.

"ouch…" something said in a monotone voice, Ray not realizing it was coming from D's clutched hand.

"I'm sorry!" She instantly let go and brought her hands to her face. D rubbed the puncture marks, knowing they would heal, when he saw Ray's shoulders slightly heaving as if she were crying and her hair tumbling around her like a mess. She even broke out into a cold sweet.

"I'm sorry, I just…" she choked back a sob, "had a bad dream. I don't want to stay here anymore! I want to leave right now! I—" the girl paused for a moment and look up at him. The tears streaming down her cheeks seemed to stop.

"That wasn't you who said 'ouch' was it…"

D just stared at her silently. Ray was starting to get use to his silence speaking for him. She reached for the hand the nearly ripped off and turned it palm up. Even when she saw the delicate contour lines that resembled a face she didn't scream. She just looked forward and let go of D's hand.

"I knew you were a freak."

The hunter just blinked. Not only had she now known about his left hand, but that she practically heard their conversations for the past few nights.

"I knew you were talking to someone, it wasn't just in my head!"

She wiped the tears from her eyes away. The girl had nothing else to say, her mind was more concentrated on leaving here as soon as possible, but then she started feeling tired again.

D shook his head and brought the blanket up around her. "Go to sleep, Ray. We'll leave in the morning."

She nodded with her eyes close and wrapped the meek blanket around herself. D settled back into his spot and lay there with his back turned to her. The girl watched his dark auburn hair fall across his back to the floor. But if felt to her as if she were looking at him through different eyes now, and she couldn't understand why…

"My dream was about you…" she spoke softly. "You…you were a vampire and you wanted to kill me."

After the quietness fell, he sighed softly. "In all my years of being a Vampire Hunter, I have never killed a human, Araydia." His voice sounded tired.

D thought that might have been the end to whatever she had to say when she asked him something rather startling.

"Hey D…could you turn into a vampire if you really wanted?"

He turned on his back with one hand resting across his chest and looked at her. In the gently moonlight she could see that his eyes were dark blue. Not blue like hers, but they were not eyes of a creature of the night, nor the harsh eyes of a hunter that seeks danger, they were the eyes of a person who held compassion.

"Why do you say that?" he said softly.

"Because…You were a Vampire in my dream. And my dreams don't really lie to me…it's a gift I've had since I was little. Once in a while I get these nightmares and they mean something, and I don't really know what."

She looked down and saw that she still held his attention, his expression hadn't changed at all.

"I thought you were one of them…You just seemed so different. You're the only person who hasn't really yelled at me or told me to shut up. Well, at least not out loud. You're different, D…"

His gaze shifted to the far corner of the room so she could only see his lowered eyes.

"I'm not exactly 'one of them', only part." And he had no shame in saying this. Even if it was his secret, he didn't have to hide it from her.

"I know you won't hurt me D, I trust you." Araydia smiled at him, but he didn't even look up to see it. Those words didn't bring any comfort to him at all, he felt as if he wasn't worthy of anyone's trust for fear he might break it when he couldn't control himself.

The girl nestled under her blanket sighed softly. Then she gathered her courage to ask him one more question:

"D, have you ever been in love?"

He lay quiet for a while and she could read by the expression on his face he was thinking.

"No…" D replied softly, "I don't believe a man like me is capable of love."

Ray furrowed her brow and drew in on herself, bringing her knees to her stomach. "I don't believe you," she whispered, more to herself than him.

And with that, the young girl pulled the blanket up around her, and instead of going to sleep, she clumsily stepped one foot down from the frame of the bed and before D could realize, she sunk down beside him, next to him. She was neatly resting her head on his chest as if she found comfort in him and one hand lay across his belly. Some of the blanket was even sprawled out over him.

He jumped for a moment, not expecting this at all, not use to it. He wished as hard as he could that she would go back to her bed where she would be safe from him. He didn't trust himself, he didn't know if he would hurt her, but he didn't want to. She closed her eyes and could hear his heart gently pounding. Of all the things he was afraid of, this is what made his heart pound.

Years of self control had took their toll. An innocent maiden could lay down beside a part-breed Vampire and remain untouched, even with crimson sweet blood coursing through her veins. D just simply turned his head the opposite direction of her vulnerable neck and closed his eyes. He was also trying to relax in an attempt to make his heart stop pounding.

Finally after calming down, he sighed tiredly as a pale hand lifted and claw-like nails ran their way through the girl's soft hair to lull her to sleep. It worked like a charm and he found himself drifting off into sleep as well.