Sorry for the wait (whoever's reading this :P). I wanted this to be the chapter that Dominique and Vergil meet, but things (my psych exam, essays) keep getting in the way of my free time :(. Anyway I hope you enjoy and please review :)

PS. Thank you to those who reviewed/faved/are following this! (Makes me happy ^/^)

Thoughts

"Talking"

Chapter 2

After several hours of dreamless sleep, I finally awoke again. Eyes closed and body slackened, I stretched out my stiff limbs and rolled unto my back. A silent yawn escaped my lips before I cut it short. Visions of the one eyed demon's snarl flooded my mind and I tensed in fear. Fixing my eyes shut, I worked to calm my heart; it was nearly pounding out of my chest. Instinctively, I placed my hand over it.

Wait… No shackles. My breathing picked up again as I noticed that I was no longer lying on cold cement; in fact, it felt like just the opposite. My back was being cushioned by the softness of several throw pillows and the room I was placed in had a pleasant, warm temperature. My brows relaxed and my mind lingered on the supposedly impossible.

Was it… all a dream? Slowly, my eyelids opened and I prayed that somehow I had made it back to my cozy studio apartment; that the heater was merely set a few degrees higher than usual. Instead, my gaze fell upon a spacious, but dimly lit room. Looking around I saw that I had been sleeping in one of its four corners; all of which were crowded with various fluffy looking floor and throw pillows and intricately patterned quilts. Crap… The room also lacked windows and provided one, impenetrable seeming, door. I stiffened when I noticed movement from the other three corners of the room.

Cautiously, I sat up to get a better look around; the quilt that had covered me slipped down and I gasped. Besides a simple gold collar and some of my dreadlocks falling in front of my chest, I was stark naked.

What the hell! Again! I hastily wrapped the quilt around me and fashioned it into a dress. My cheeks continued to burn with embarrassment as I heard muffled giggles coming from the other side of the room. I froze in place.

"You're ah funny one aren't cha?" The voice was cheery and child-like; I allowed myself to relax a little.

"O-one what," I asked nervously. I could make out the shape of a child's head as it popped up from underneath the mountain of pillows. "You know silly! A human," she chuckled. A human...? Wait, then she's not… Her vision was apparently way better than mine as I barely made out her head tilting in curiosity. "Wow," she exclaimed as she exploded from pillows. She scampered across the room toward where I was sitting and I jumped back out of surprise, back colliding with the wall. Seeing my distress, she stopped dead in her tracks.

"What's the matter," she asked innocently; I could hear the frown in her voice as her twin tails swayed behind her. Overcome with panic, I pressed into the wall.

"Leave her alone Naveen," instructed an older voice gruggily. My eyes flew from the demon child to the far right corner of the room. "All you're doing is scaring the hell out of her." The voice belonged to a slender figure who was sitting up on her pile of pillows; she sported long, black hair and skin so white it glowed in the darkened room.

Naveen took a step back and I turned to face her again. Her shoulders had visibly slumped as her tails lay limply on the carpeted floor. "I'm sorry," she whispered with genuine regret. "You're just so pretty… I wanted to get a closer look at you."

As she turned toward her corner of the room, I could see she too wore a collar of gold and nothing else. This… "child" is not with the Cyclops guy? "Wait!" Naveen's tails bolted up in surprise and she whirled around. "Yes," she asked with revived enthusiasm.

"You're not with that Cyclops guy… are you?" Her head tilted again and her tails began to move about excitedly.

"Cyclops guy? I don't know a Cyclops guy. You mean a demon with one eye? Hey! Hey! Jade has a Cyclops eye! Well not really; she has two eyes and another one on her forehead. But the guy who brought us here sealed it up! Right Jade?" Naveen turned toward the woman with the porcelain skin. It was obvious she was trying to ignore us and get some sleep, but that wasn't going to happen. She groaned in defeat and stood up to walk toward us.

I tried to stay calm as she got close enough for me to get a good look at her; Naveen took Jade's advances as her chance to get closer to me as well.

Now that they were only a foot or so in front of me, I could distinguish their features more accurately. Naveen looked to be no older than any eleven year old human girl… except that she wasn't human. In place of hair, her skin was layered with a coat of smooth, tri-colored fur; her chest being mostly white, her back being black, and bits of brown adorned her face and dotted her back. Her ears were on the sides of her head, but were elf-like and covered in brown fur. Upon further inspection, I saw that one of her eyes was blue and the other green; both contained impossibly wide pupils.

Jade brought her fist down on top of Naveen's head and the child grasped it in pain. "OOOWWWW! Jade what was that for," she yelled in discomfort. The taller woman simply crossed her arms and locked eyes with the smaller.

"One, you didn't listen to me about leaving her alone, and two, you were disturbing my afternoon nap," she replied with explicit irritation. Naveen retorted with a series of whines and whimpers as Jade ground her fist playfully into the child's head. Forgetting my fear of them for a few moments, I loosen up as their banter continued.

With a sigh of annoyance, Jade ran a long hand through her extensive curtain of black hair. I took the opportunity to study her facial features; mostly to look for her third eye. Aside from her shockingly pale skin, red eyes, and the large bandage over her forehead she looked like an ordinary woman; well except for being exceptionally beautiful. My gaze lingered a little too long on her concealed third eye and our eyes meet.

I looked down to cease my gawking and apologized for my rudeness. "Hmmm." I turned to Jade as she sat down next to me on my pile of pillows; she gave me a once over and I started to feel unsettled and surprisingly self-conscious. "Interesting… Naveen wasn't kidding," she stated nonchalantly.

"About what," I asked with new found control over my voice. She laid back unto her elbows before answering and a blush creeped up my neck; I focused my eyes ahead. Jeez… you're necked and you're not even going try to cover up!

"Broad lips, almond shaped eyes, long lashes, high cheek bones, and a button nose. Plus a slim, pear-shaped figure. You're quite a looker; probably worth a small fortune sense this place doesn't sell regular humans."

Sell! My stomach twisted into knots and my face slipped into a frown. "Hey, you okay?" Naveen placed one of her large paws to my forehead and I flinched. "Humans do this to see if another is sick right?" Jade's eyebrow twitched in irritation and she flicked Naveen's forehead with one of her long, manicured fingers. "OOOWWWW! Jade! What'd I do now?" Naveen placed both her paws over her injured forehead.

"You creeped her out again; that's what." Naveen's face fell and she looked to me for confirmation. Her expression was priceless; I couldn't help but laugh. "It's okay… and thank you for your concern," I answered while failing to stifle my laughs. Naveen turned to Jade with a huge grin. "See! She was totally fine with it!"

"Please; she's just too nice to call a brat like you creepy."

"Brat?! I'm three hundred years old," she countered. I raised my eyebrows in shock. "Are you serious," I questioned. Shifting to me, Naveen puffed out her chest; as if taking pride in being the eldest. "Sure am!"

"You're still a brat," Jade informed coldly. "Am not! Tell her- um. What's your name again," she inquired with embarrassment in her tone. "Dominique," I replied with a smile. She returned my answer with an even greater grin. "Yeah; tell her Dominique!" As they went back and forth again I continued to laugh; I didn't notice the fourth occupant of the room waking in the far left corner.

"How sweet; everyone's getting all buddy-buddy before we get sold off like cattle." I turned my head toward the left as Naveen moved to duck behind Jade. I was about to ask her what's wrong before the other woman literally slithered over to us. The skin of her arms, bust, forehead and cheeks were concealed by thick yellow-green scales and her platinum blonde, shoulder-length hair was combed back away from her face. My eyes widen as I took in the lengthy tail that coiled underneath her.

"So you're the new girl," she stated with an unimpressed tone. The pupils of her grey colored irises narrowed into fine slits. "And here I thought they would bring in someone worth having a conversation with." Her torso lifted off her tail and she sat to my left; her closeness was making Naveen tremble. I worked to stay calm on the surface, but Jade had me beat; her face was completely stoic.

"You know three eyes is right… they don't let normal humans in here; so what's your secret?" I tensed at her question. For the first time, I remembered the Cyclops's words about collecting rare creatures. That's impossible.

"They must be mistaken then. Me and my family are completely human," I stated; proud that my voice and eyes did not waver under her gaze. A wide smirk formed on her lips, revealing slanted teeth and one of her elongated fangs; that time I shivered. "I bet," she added with a hint of snarkiness.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back to my beauty rest; keep it down," she commanded while making her way back to her own corner.

"Pfft, all the sleep in the world won't help that ugly mug," Jade commented under her breath. Naveen's trembling had disappeared along with the snake woman and she moved to sit between me and Jade. Smile back in place, she let out a powerful yawn, but rubbing the lid of her blue eye. "Bed time again, brat?" She shook her head in a weak show of defiance, but eventually laid her head onto Jade's lap; after a few minutes she was out like a light. I couldn't bring myself to share in her relief. Jade was now stroking the short, soft fur atop her head.

"Jade… do you know where we are?" She gave me a look that said she was dreading having to answer my question.

She huffed and sat up carefully as to not wake Naveen. "This room is one of several where they hold "rare finds" like us." I guessed as much, but my stomach clenched regardless. "I'm guessing there's no way out of here," I inquired while grasping onto a shred of hope.

"There would be if this seal wasn't holding back my powers… or if these collars wouldn't electrocute the hell out of us if we so much as tried to escape. Shanti-that Lamia over there-has the most resistance to the collars, but, as you may have guessed, she's not keen on working together." My heart sank at her words and a shiver echoed through me as I thought of the collar around my neck.

"So now what? Do we just wait here?"

Her eyes glowed and her pupils constricted to pin pricks. "They'll be coming for us soon; I can sense the guards outside the door."

"W-what do they want with us?"

Jade looked down at Naveen and her thin brows knit together. "To sell us like cattle."

000000000

Jade was right. In less than twenty minutes, the dense door in front of us did open. It revealed a hand full of large men with piercing black eyes dressed in all black dress shirts and pants; each had tiny horns sprouting from their foreheads. Without putting up resistance, Jade gently nudged Naveen awake and stood to her feet. Naveen followed her example, but clung to her; the guards unsettled her. One of them thought this to be humorous and moved to pull them apart. Naveen put up a good fight before another guard retrieved a small remote from his pocket and pressed one its buttons. She collapsed to the floor while twitching frantically.

"Naveen!" I rushed to sit next to her on the floor and gathered her in my arms. She looked to be drifting in and out of consciousness, but no one else seemed to care. "On your feet," commanded the guard with the remote. I looked up to see his finger hovering dangerously over its buttons. I turned to Jade who was facing forward and acting as if nothing was amiss.

Turning back to him, we locked eyes as I stood up and lifted Naveen into my arms. "May I carry her to where ever you are taking us?" I worked to keep my voice even. "Sure, just lose the quit," another guard answered. He was the demon who had pulled Naveen away from Jade and his tone made my skin crawl. I quickly shifted my attention back toward the one with the remote; he was obviously the one in charge. "Lose it," he stated icily.

I shifted Naveen to my hip and undid the quit from around my body; it fell to the floor and pooled at my feet. "Damn! Do we really have to sell this one," the other guard asked disappointingly. My eyes fell to the floor and humiliation washed over me. The grip I had on Naveen tightened.

"Secure the snake woman," the leader replied ignoring his subordinate's question. As the two men headed over toward the far left corner, the leader turned back to us. "Follow me and don't even think about running."

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After walking for several minutes through a maze of white corridors we finally came upon a door that had two more guards standing out in front of it. Stopping in front of the door, the lead guard turned to face us.

"Each of you will be escorted through this door that leads to a staircase to the main stage. On stage, you will walk toward the speaker and stand on an 'x' on the floor at the stage's center. You will face the audience and stand up straight. You will not speak, you will not try to cover yourself, and you will not try to run. All three of these actions will result in punishment or death depending on how my employer feels." His sharp eyes turned to me. "Wake her up and put her down."

My brows creased with worry, but I did whisper to Naveen to wake up. She jolted awake, but tensed as she saw the guards ahead of us. I gently set her onto the ground and pet her head. "You have to be calm Naveen; I don't want you to be hurt again. Do you understand?"

Naveen's ears and tail were downcast in fear as she saw Jade walk through the door, but she nodded her head yes.

"Next." The lead guard looked at me expectantly and I reluctantly stepped forward. Entering the room, I spotted the staircase to my left and gulped back my raising anxiety. One of the guards led me by the forearm up the steps and moved to hold back the large curtain in front of us.

"Go," he instructed harshly.

I flinched, but refused to freeze up out of fear of punishment. I didn't know what to expect as I stepped out onto the stage.