It took more than 5 minutes to see everything that Nikola deemed worthy of showing her. Helen was realizing what an astoundingly brilliant man he truly was.

"Does all this" she swept a hand over the lab bench overcrowded with devices abandoned when he had finished demonstrating them, "come from your transformation by the Source blood?"

"I will have you know my mind is the original article," he said, pretending to be offended. "I was a scientist long before the Source Blood, which awakened my dormant Vampiris genes."

"What does that mean?" she asked, and he knew she wasn't asking him to translate the word or the concept as he had when he told her of the Source Blood experiments. Helen wanted to know what it actually meant.

Nikola knew it likely had to happen at some point and as he usually only let himself vamp out in moments of defense this was probably a better setting to introduce her to that side of him, without mortal danger involved. He took a few steps back from her and the table. He bowed his head for a moment and cleared his throat before he made the transition.

When he looked up his eyes were a deep demonic black. His facial features had shifted to accommodate a mass of sharp teeth. To the relief of a concern Nikola had refused to acknowledge he had, she didn't fear him like this. Instead of backing away, she stepped closer to have a better look. Ever the scientist, endlessly curious.

The eyes did take some getting used to, Helen decided. It wasn't even a deep inky black you could sink into. More a hard, brittle black, with sharp shards that cut into you. Rather like his rapier wit, she thought irrelevantly. The change to the arrangement of his features made it hard to read his expression and for half a moment she thought his eyebrows were knit because he was glaring at her. But it was a frown for another reason. And it was interfering with her observations of the change of his transformation.

Without thought, Helen reached up and smoothed his brow with her fingers to make the creases go away. It worked because Nikola's face slackened in astonishment. His jaw dropped and this turned Helen's attention to his fangs. Her hand drifted down and he froze as she grazed one with a finger.

Then she gasped and pulled back, cradling her hand where a bead of blood pooled on her on the tip of her forefinger.

"That was a great deal sharper than i was expecting." She apologized and offered a rueful chuckle.

Nikola caught her hand in his, gently, minding his long claws and bent over it to inspect the damage. He swiped the blood aside with his thumb and saw the puncture was deep but small. After bleeding for a bit, it would clot and heal without a problem. Doctor Magnus would prescribe a cleansing of the wound and bandage. Nothing major, he assured her. But he was still miserable as his claws retracted and face shifted back to normal.

Drawing blood from Helen was unforgivable.

After Nikola had released her and stepped back once again she noticed him staring down at his own hand. It was smeared with blood from the wound, her blood. She wondered if it tempted him, if he hungered for blood, how he ate. The fangs she had seen could end her in the blink of an eye, tear her throat so savagely all the doctors in the world couldn't save her. Yet she hadn't felt the least bit threatened by them. Her injury was her own fault and not the first time something she had gone poking at had poked back. The number of times she had been bitten by a snake as a child had given her parents palpitations.

Nikola withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and scrubbed the blood from his thumb. He turned back to her and wrapped a clean corner of it around her finger. She held it in place while Nikola surprised her by sweeping an arm to clear a corner of the table of instruments and inventions. He shoved them aside and paid no mind to the few that were crowded off the counter on the far side and fell with a clatter. He turned and placed his hands on her hips; before she could process what was happening she was sitting on the lab table where he had deposited her in the space he cleared.

He stepped away for a moment to find the first aid kit. Helen realized there was more to being a vampire than pointy teeth and eyes like obsidian. He had lifted her with ease and a fluid speed. That thin lanky frame hid an Abnormal strength.

Nikola returned and opened the kit, focusing on his work to avoid meeting her eyes.
He swiped the alcohol pad over her finger. Helen didn't flinch though it must sting, Nikola knew. He gently blew on the wound so the cool tickle of air would distract from the pain of the wound and the stinging bite of the alcohol. But then he himself was distracted when a tiny shiver rippled through Helen, drawing his eyes sharply to her face. In the second before she reacted to his gaze, he realized she had been studying him intently. What did she see there? Damned inscrutable woman.

"So, you're a natural born genius, you built all these incredible devices," Helen lifted one at random from the table. "that i can't imagine dreaming up, let alone actually inventing. You are also a vampire, possessed of fangs and claws and inhuman strength and i suspect a number of other attributes as well."

She shook her head, marveling at the man. There were many astounding Abnormals in the Sanctuary, but Nikola Tesla was an entity entirely unique.

"Is there anything else i should know before I consider myself suitably impressed?." She grinned at him, cheeky because she had never truly believed his ego to be underfed.

Nikola smirked and reached out to take the invention she had used as an example from her grasp. Stepping back from where he stood between her knees, he gave a flourish and laid his other hand onto the device. Not on any of the buttons of dials, just on a nondescript panel of no importance. There was a faint hum as it came to life without any visible power source, lights coming on, mechanisms engaging. He took his hand away again and set the machine back down on the table. After a second it died again, lights fading as it whirred to a stop.

Not content with that display, he stepped back again for more clearance and extend his hands, palms up, in Helen's direction. Pausing to be certain he had her total attention, he then curled his fingers upward. Sparks and tiny arcs of lightning jumped between his fingertips, hissing and flashing and casting a faintly blue glow over Nikola. Helen watched in awe as the arcs of lightning grew and coalesced and began to dance back and forth between his outstretched hands. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, the muscles in his forearms were tense and corded as he harnessed the electricity. His normal unruly hair was standing on end now and he looked less like a vampire and more like a mad scientist.

Nikola smothered the power down inside himself again, the glow died and the sparks stopped and his hands looked human again. He smiled at her speechless delight in his display. A few steps brought him back to his previous place in front of her, eye level as she sat on the counter-top. He reached out a hand and she watched it hesitate before he placed it on her forearm. His fingertips grazed the inside bend of her elbow before he trailed two digits gently, slowly down the length of her forearm.

In the wake of his fingers, there was a path of skin left tingling. A bit more than a tickle, but less than a sting. It was a pleasant tingling, as if her skin had been reinvigorated and revived, and it made Helen smile.

Until his touch reached her sensitive inner wrist. There the riot of sensation caused her to suck in a sudden breath and shudder delicately as the tingle seemed to work its way from her arm to her spine to race up and down.

Nikola froze. He'd been drawing his hand back to his side but her reaction… His eyes were riveted to her face, now flushed, watching her expression for any sign her should stop. But his fingers were drifting back to their starting point. The crease where her elbow bent, the skin thin and delicate. Slowly he followed the path he had taken before, letting the light buzz of electricity flow from him to her.

At the end of the second pass, she finally looked up at him. She didn't stop him from making a third and this time he caught her hand at the end of it, swirling his thumb against the pulse point on her wrist. She looked down at their joined hands, then back up at him. But not into his eyes. Nikola was floored to realize she was looking at his mouth, his lips. He wanted nothing more than to duck in closer and taste hers.

In that instant he began to wonder if he was really the kind of monster William thought he was after all.

Before he discovered the answer to that question, his senses alerted him of someone approaching in the corridor. He stepped away and turned abruptly from Helen, who sat back upright on the counter. She hadn't even realized she had been leaning towards him. It seemed they had both moving closer without being conscious of it. Before he moved, Nikola had been standing between her knees, his body invading her personal space in a way Helen was surprised to find not unwelcome. She wasn't sure how to take the almost-moment that had just occurred, or his rejection of it.

A polite ahem interrupted her confusion. Henry stood at the door waiting for Nikola's attention.

"Latest rounded of test results on the artifact, you wanted them ASAP." Henry brandished his tablet as he spoke, then gave Helen a friendly nod. "Hey, Doc."

She returned his greeting as Nikola crossed to the door to examine the results. Helen realized he must have heard Henry coming. So that was why he practically leapt away from her. After scolding him for damaging her reputation, he hadn't wanted her to be caught in a potentially compromising situation. He'd put space between them before Henry arrived so there wouldn't be any call for suspicion. It was rather respectful of him, especially as she was sure she had seen a desperate desire to kiss her written on his face.

Her mind spent the rest of the day wondering what might have happened if they hadn't been interrupted.