Emma allowed herself a moment to savour the feel of his cool lips against her own, moving gently but with the kind of confidence that could only come from experience. She kissed him back with the same kind of tenderness, savouring that unique flavour that seemed to coat every inch of him, as she reached up to run her fingers through his hair.
But when Killian groaned low in the back of his throat, all of her senses seemed to snap back into place, and she realized just how little she knew about the man whose kisses were currently making her dizzy, while he had her pinned to the floor.
"Stop," she gasped out, pushing firmly against his chest. "Stop."
"I'm sorry. I thought…"
"Yeah, well… you thought wrong," she snapped back at him. "I've told you before, I'm not that kind of girl."
Killian pulled himself up and off Emma to give her some space, as he watched her push herself to her feet.
As soon as she was standing, she turned her back to him as she attempted to control her harsh breathing and gather her wits. Emma didn't want him to see just how much he'd affected her, because she knew that if he did, she wouldn't be able to maintain any kind of distance between the two of them.
"Look… I came to you because you seem to know what you're doing here," she told him, turning back to face him with a look of determination set into her features. "I'm not here for a relationship, and certainly not with someone who won't tell me anything about themselves."
"You know more about me than most people do," he mumbled quietly.
Emma chose to pretend that she hadn't heard him, as she continued speaking. "If you can't help me with this whole slayer gig, then I'll wait until Gold can."
"I can help you," he assured her, in a much louder and far more confident tone. "It won't happen again."
"Good. But I um… I think I should probably leave."
"You don't have to go," Killian told her, as he took a small step forward. He wanted to reach out for her, but he knew that physical contact wouldn't go down well in that moment, so instead, he balled his hands into fists. "We could um… how about we hit the streets?" he asked instead. "I can show you some of the places that vamps tend to frequent, and maybe we can kill some bad guys before the night is over?"
Emma considered the offer for a minute. A large part of her brain was screaming that she should put some distance between the two of them, after what had happened. But another part was urging her to accept any and all forms of training being offered to her.
In the end, it was the slayer within her that won the battle.
"Okay," she agreed. "Is there somewhere around here I could wash up first?"
"Third door on the right."
When they left the mansion together it was in a tense silence, as Killian made sure to keep a good distance between the two of them. He didn't want Emma to get the wrong idea about his intentions, but he refused to stay too far away. He knew that the streets of Storybrooke could be dangerous after dark, so he wanted to remain close enough the slayer, in case of an ambush.
"The cemeteries are always a good place to start," he told her. "Any freshly turned vampires can normally be killed before they have a chance to leave their own graves, thanks to how confused and sluggish they are."
"Okay. Cemeteries - check. How many are there in this town?"
"Four," Killian replied simply, as Emma's eyes widened in horror. "At opposite corners of the town too."
"Of course they are," she sighed. "Because putting them next to each other would make things far too easy."
"It's the Hellmouth," Killian argued. "Did you really expect it to be easy?"
"Shush with your logic and… stuff," Emma threw back at him, enjoying that hint of playful banter once more. It was reassuring after the tense way their patrol had begun. "Is there some sort of order in which I should check those out?"
"Make sure you grab a copy of the Storybrooke Mirror each day. That will list the most recent obituaries, and where each person will be buried. Those that have clearly died from natural causes you won't need to worry about. But anything that sounds like an animal attack, or a brutal murder… anything suspicious is what you're looking for. Go to those cemeteries first."
"Check the obituaries," she noted. "It's a good job Dad decided to subscribe to the paper the old-fashioned way. I should probably apologise to him for mocking that decision."
"Is there a 'new-fashioned' way to subscribe to a paper?" Killian wondered.
"You're joking, right? Have you heard of the internet? Because, believe it or not, it's not all porn on there. There are actually websites that report the news too."
Killian chuckled a little at Emma's tone, as he argued, "Have you met the editor for the Storybrooke Mirror? Because he does not look like a man who got past the porn part of the internet when he was exploring it."
"Eww, thanks for that disturbing mental image," she grimaced. But Emma couldn't help but laugh a little as she did.
She'd forgotten how easy being around Killian could be.
However, the moment they rounded the corner onto the street that would lead them down to the closest cemetery, all of their humour died. Both Emma and Killian could feel that subtle charge in the air. One that told them there was some kind of supernatural being in the area.
And it was coming from the graveyard.
Emma pulled out the stake she'd brought with her, holding it firmly in her right hand, as she watched Killian take out one of his own.
"Is there more than one?" she whispered to her partner. They had begun silently edging closer to the cemetery, following that pull of supernatural energy that was drawing them in.
"I can't be sure," he replied, as his eyes scanned the surrounding areas. "The paper reported two, but vampires like to feed. Either way, it's always better to err on the side of caution."
Emma wanted to protest over his secret keeping once more. She wanted to tell him than he should have mentioned the reports in the paper, and his suspicions about what they would find that evening. But she knew the moment wasn't right for either of them to be distracted by a petty fight. If two humans had been turned, and were already out, then they would need to stay sharp and focused.
It didn't take them long to find the source of the unease that had settled over them both. A small group of vampires were sat on top of some kind of monument, in the middle of the graveyard. They looked to be having a lively discussion about something, and hadn't yet noticed the intruders on the scene.
Emma made a move to inch closer to them, hoping that she would hear what was being said. But Killian's arm shot out fast to latch onto her own with surprising strength, as he held her in place. He shook his head firmly whilst raising his other hand to place a finger to his lips, but his eyes never left the group of vampires in front of them.
The worry she could see behind his gaze had Emma swallowing back her own fear, as she wondered what it was that he knew about the group, that she didn't.
Killian kept a tight grip on her arm until someone let out a loud and feminine laugh, and the vampires in front of them quickly began to scatter.
Emma hadn't noticed the smaller one in the middle of the group. She was the only female there, and was dressed rather provocatively in what could only be described as Catholic-School-girl-kink. Emma watched as she played seductively with the end of one of the braids she'd tied her hair into, before she practically skipped from the cemetery, taking that feeling of unease with her.
"What the hell?" Emma demanded, the moment she was sure they were alone. "We could have followed her to see where she was going. She might have given us some kind of information about the Master."
"We were down-wind," Killian pointed out. "The moment a breeze came along, she'd have known she was being followed. Those were not new vampires, Emma. They were old ones. Skilled ones. Vampires who have probably hunted slayers for sport. They are not the kind of people you need to be messing around with right now."
"And how do you know that?" she demanded, arching a judgemental brow in his direction.
Killian sighed heavily and Emma could see his mind racing, even as he remained silent.
There was something else he wasn't telling her.
"The female vampire," he eventually replied. "I know her."
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