TWENTY-ONE

Hermione went very still. Swallowing hard, she lowered her gaze to the arms circled around her. She was painfully aware of the rise and fall of his chest against her back as he breathed, of the sound of those breaths rushing close to her ear.

She wondered if this might be what some small, helpless rodent felt like when caught in the clutches of a hawk. Of course, there was the tiny fact that a hawk and a mouse had never done the things they had, and she wasn't precisely helpless, but being that she was technically his prey, she felt the similarity did still appear to bear some weight.

He seemed still now, himself, possibly lost in thought. This might be a perfect time to hit him with something and make a run for it. She tried to ignore a wonder—a single, errant flickering notion through her mind—as to how long it'd been since someone, anyone, had held her like this while she calculated her chances of escape.

She was a decent runner, but then he'd already proved that didn't matter. He'd entered her room last night while she'd been sleeping, which meant that upir did not require invitations, but moreover that he'd somehow bypassed Oksana's wards—did that mean magic no longer affected him, or merely that it didn't affect him as it should? Not being affected by magic could have its advantages, though. Apparation perhaps? No. Without a clearer indication which it was she couldn't know whether to not she'd end up dragging him side-along, leaving Apparating clearly out of the question.

Her eyes drifted closed and she let out an involuntary sigh. So much for any daring escape plan.

His hold tightened and he gently dropped his head against the top of hers.

All right, so she also understood that if she ran, she might never get answers to whatever this madness was. She supposed now was as good a time as any to get those answers, before she was stupid enough to let herself realize that maybe this didn't feel terrible as logic dictated it should.

In a cemetery, in the—she hated herself for the pun—dead of night, cuddled in the lap of a mythological creature who'd twice now drank her blood. She refused to acknowledge what else he'd done to her twice now.

"D ... Dolohov?" she started, wishing she could kick herself for how her voice spilled out in a trembling breath.

After a painfully long while, making her wonder if he'd nodded off despite the knowledge that upir were nocturnal, he answered with a simple, "Yes?"

A dozen questions all scrambled to form, the words sticking in her throat so that she managed to say was, "What the hell?"