Disclaimer - anything recognizable is not mine.
Gregory P.O.V.
Gregory and the human girl – Seraphina, hadn't lingered on the cliff long. The beeping of Rookery's truck had disturbed their peace and they had gone their separate ways.
He saved a human.
The thought kept repeating itself in his head.
He saved a human. Why? What had compelled him to step out of the shadows and stop her? Deep down he knew the answer. He and his family had spent so much time and energy to find a way to regain their humanity that something inside him couldn't sit idly by while another so easily gave up such a gift.
He saved a human. But he had exposed himself. He had inadvertently put his whole family in danger. He couldn't let any of them find out what he'd done. He and his father argued enough. 'What were you thinking?' his father would shout. The answer, he wasn't thinking; saving Sera from her own darkness had been instinct. How saving a human could be instinctual for a vampire, he didn't know. In truth, he didn't care. He had done what he'd done, now all he could do was hope that his actions didn't come back to bite him.
Sera P.O.V.
All day Sera couldn't stop thinking about the vampire who had saved her life. Gregory. He'd somehow been able to pull her back from the dark hole that her mind had fallen into without even really trying. She still couldn't figure out why he'd done it though and it was that question that drove her to sneak out the following night to try and locate him.
Now sneaking out to find a vampire her father would understand, but not taking a stake with her, he would never believe she'd be so foolish.
The bigger problem was that she had no idea where to look for him. So she began her night by wandering the woods near the cliff side, hoping she'd run into him again. After a few hours of wandering she got lucky. She heard the screech of a bat and when she looked up into the treetops there he was sitting casually on a branch. His back against the trunk with one leg bent in front of him on the branch and the other swinging in the air.
"Hello again." he greeted her politely. It was strange for Sera, she'd been trained to believe vampires were terrible, murderous creatures from hell. A vampire with manners was a shock.
"Gregory."
"Seraphina." She repressed a shudder.
"Please, just Sera."
"As you wish." He replied as he dropped down from the branch. She noticed his eyes were different from last night. Before they had been a deep red, now they were a bright electric blue.
Her father would kill her if he ever found out she had such a great opportunity to kill a vampire and she let it pass her by. The only thing she had was her knife and that wouldn't kill his kind.
"I assume you have a reason for searching for me?" he asked.
"I wasn't searching for- " he raised an eyebrow, the movement was enough for her to know he saw through her attempted lie. "I needed to talk to you." He gave a slight nod silently telling her to go on. She took a deep breath.
"Why did you do it?" he looked her in the eye for several seconds before answering.
"Humanity is a gift. It shouldn't be wasted."
"But still, why not kill me yourself?"
"What reason have you given me to kill you?"
She scoffed, "I know how the food chain works."
It was his turn to scoff, "You're a little too thin to be that appetizing."
Sera paused unsure if she should be offended or not. Gregory seemed entertained by her expression.
"That's not funny." She said before continuing her walk, he followed after her.
"Was that the only question you had?" they were walking at a steady pace now with no destination in mind.
"How many of your kind are there?" she tread with caution. He hesitated before speaking.
"I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
He took a deep breath, "They're my family. I have to keep them safe. Surely you can understand that."
"Not really." She muttered under her breath but he heard it and turned to look at her with a puzzled expression.
"What do you mean?"
"I just – I don't really have any family I'd protect. Well, except for my aunt but I rarely ever see her."
"You wouldn't protect your parents? Your siblings?"
"I'm an only child. My mother. . . I'd protect her if I could but. . . she died, a long time ago."
"Oh, I'm sorry." He whispered.
"So am I. She was an incredible person, my father on the other hand. . . he practically gave me away. Betrothed me to the grandson of some wealthy noble family. I'm just a bargaining chip to him." Sera didn't know what it was about him that made her easily spill her guts. She hadn't even known him twenty-four hours, but he had already seen her at her lowest point, what did she have to lose? "I know arranged marriages were pretty common in your time but - "
"No, even then an arranged marriage was pretty horrible, for the people involved anyway."
They continued walking and talking, little by little she learned more and more about him. Gregory was born into an aristocratic family three hundred years ago. They were searching for the Stone of Attamon so they could become human again. It shocked Sera, Gregory and his family didn't sound at all like the monsters her father had made them out to be.
"Well Sera, we've walked about a mile or two through these woods and talked about both our childhoods but it still feels like there's more you wanted to say." Mentally she added clever and intuitive to the list of things she had been picking up on him.
"Well, I wanted to thank you for what you did. You didn't have to stop me but you did. And for that I'm grateful."
"You're welcome."
She chuckled nervously, "I can only imagine what you must think of me. 'Poor little mortal, what could she possibly know about suffering? Of misery?"
"No. That's not what I was thinking at all. I had been thinking 'What could have happened to make her think she had no other way out?'"
"I – I didn't really see it as the only way out. I didn't even really think about it at all. Just with everything that's been happening, it got me thinking about my mother and I just thought, how bad can death be when you have someone waiting for you on the other side? Living with my father was something I could easily put up with. But now being plunged into this new life surrounded by people who expect me to be as fragile as a flower, which I'm not! And the guy they've stuck me with. . ."
"Do you love him?"
"What?"
"Do you love him?"
"That's a pretty rude question. I barely know you, you barely know me, that's not an appropriate question to ask –"
"Well it's a simple question, do you love the guy or not?"
"We are not having this conversation." She scoffed.
"Why can't you just answer the question?" He began to smirk like he was getting pleasure from this. Like it was quality entertainment for him.
"You are so annoying!"
"Well, well, now who's being rude?" he mocked.
She tried to come up with something to say but she couldn't, her mouth just kept opening and closing as she stuttered. It didn't help that she could practically see the joy dancing in his blue eyes at her lack of composure.
"I'm leaving now." She decided, "I sought you out to thank you. Now I have thanked you –"
"And you've insulted me." He said still smirking, the cheeky bastard.
"I – well—you deserved it."
"Is that really the best you can come up with?"
"I – you – you're playing with me aren't you?" she added it to her mental list: sneaky, clever, intuitive and now crafty and somewhat manipulative.
"It took you long enough to figure it out." He chuckled.
"How dare you!"
"Blame it on three hundred years of missed out social interaction." He said nonchalantly leaning against a tree.
"Well then what did you do with all that time?" she asked still somewhat steamed.
"I. . . people watched."
"People watched?"
"Mm-hmm. Some humans can be quite interesting. I remember there was this one man in the twenties who always dressed in tattered clothing and walked through town at night. Everyone thought he was some old beggar, after he died it turned out he was filthy rich and he left all his money to the local orphanage.
Another woman lost her husband and she believed in reincarnation so every night she would get dressed up and go sit in their favorite pub and she'd wait for his soul to find it's way back to her."
"That's incredible. How much you know about people just from seeing them from afar."
"I saw you."
"And?" she asked with a challenge in her voice.
"You wouldn't have jumped." He accused still smirking.