All characters belong to JKR

Part V:

Regulus' hands were warm and steady on her body. He asked her what she wanted from him. He almost seemed desperate for her response. She was just as desperate to answer. Rising on her toes, she moved closer to him, placed her lips lightly on his for a fraction of a second and then leaning away, she answered, "I want you."

She said, "I want you," when he asked her what she wanted. That answer angered him. His hands, which were firmly on her body, dropped away when she made that mad declaration. She didn't even know him, not the real him, yet she claimed to want him.

She was everything sweet and tempting, right at his fingertips, but she didn't have a clue as to what she had just admitted to him. He wouldn't be toyed with. He wouldn't be played or made to be a fool. Here was yet another woman whose head was turned by the prospect of being with a vampire, or perhaps she liked the prospect that he had once been a Death Eater. It was hard to tell, but he was having none of it.

For once in his life he wished someone would want him for what was inside. For once he wished someone would want to know the man he had started to be, not the man he had become. Not the Death Eater. Not the Vampire. Not the man full of hate and rage.

He used women, women like her, for pleasure, for food, as objects for sex and desire. They used him, too. She was no different from the rest. He wanted her to be different, yet she was the same.

"You want me?" he asked maliciously, reaching out with his fingers, holding her hair, then letting his fingers grip tightly around each shoulder. "Why? I would do more than kiss you, you know. You're pure. Untainted. Unused. Pristine. I can smell it on you. I would take all that was holy and make it black and ugly. I would fill you with my anger. Is that what you want? Is that what you crave? Does the good girl want a taste of the bad boy? Does the hero want to reform the Death Eater? Do you want to tame the monster inside of me?"

He wanted to punish her…push her away and make her pay for playing with his emotions. Instead, he crushed her to his chest, with nimble fingers tilted her head back, and with more force than was necessary, he held her head, one hand laced in her hair, one arm around her waist, and he dragged his fangs across the long column of her neck. "Is this what you want?" He let one fang pierce the ivory translucent skin. A small pinprick of crimson came to the surface and formed a perfect drop of blood on her flawless white skin.

She seemed paralyzed with fear. He knew she would be. He fed on people's fears. She was no different. He continued to taunt her. "Moan for me, good girl," he leered crudely. "I'll sink my teeth deep inside and then we can have a good fuck and I'll send you on your way and you can tell everyone that you were with a vampire."

He hated her almost as much as he hated himself, anger for her seeping out of every pore.

She was no longer passive in his arms. She began to push him away, scrape at him, although her attempts were feeble, as her strength was nothing compared to his. He was about to bite down when he heard her shaking voice say, "I meant…I meant that I wanted the Regulus from the journal. The one I read about. I don't want this. What makes you think I want this? Let me go! Please! I demand you let me go!" She clawed at him, tried to shove him away, tears rushing down her face. "I wanted to know the man who helped Harry and Ron and I defeat Voldemort," she added as his breathing became more erratic, his mouth finally closing, but his grip just as tight.

He couldn't see her face, but he imagined that she must look terrified and he didn't want to see that. Not on her. She was so soft. So fragile. Her skin tasted so good, a hint of salt and innocence. He turned his face toward hers, her lashes closed down over her eyes and another tear leaked from the edge.

Her tears broke him.

He was an animal.

He tucked her head softly into his shoulder, unwound his fingers from her head, and massaged her scalp, while rubbing circles on her back with the hand that was around her waist. "That man doesn't exist any longer. Regulus Black died twenty years ago, when he was only twenty years old. I may still look like that twenty-year-old man, but I feel so old and used. I'm not him. One look behind the doors on the second floor and you would know that I'm no longer that man. One look at the debauchery and horrors that happen there and you'd know that I'm a monster. No, no one wants to know me." He wanted to add an, "I'm sorry," but he wouldn't. He couldn't.

"This was such a mistake," she said, and he couldn't agree more. She finally pushed away from him. They stared at each other for long moments, neither speaking. She stopped crying and said, "I shouldn't have come, perhaps that's true. Perhaps that man, that boy, isn't alive inside you any longer, because you've lived a vastly different life since then, but I still want to know the real you. The monster you claim to be isn't the real you! It can't be. I've read that journal, and it was like reading what was inside your soul! I've read your deepest, darkest thoughts and regrets! Becoming a vampire doesn't change who you are. It doesn't change your heart and soul!"

"NO!" he shouted, and again, another, "NO!" He turned to stride away from her. He stopped at the doorway and said, "The real me would send you to bedlam and back, dear girl. You need to run away from here. Go find your young man, the Weasley boy. Marry him. Have a family. Have a life. I can't give you anything but pain and misery and death. It's all I know. It's all I crave. It's what's in my heart and soul now!"

She watched him go, unsure why he refused to acknowledge that his affliction didn't make him what he was, it was only a small part of him. What did he think she wanted with him? Why didn't he trust her? She wouldn't push him. She would show him kindness and patience and make him come to her.

Because she loved the man that he once was, but she lusted after the man that he had become.

She ran up to the second floor. She stood at the landing of the stairs that went to the next flight of stairs and instead of heading up them, she turned down the hallway to her left. There were three hallways off this landing, one in front of her, a left wing, and a right one. She wanted to know what was hidden behind the doors on the second floor, and she wanted to know now. If he thought that whatever was behind these doors would convince her that he was the monster, not the man, then she wanted to know what was behind them.

She walked slowly down the hallway to the left. There was almost no light. The deeper she walked into the long hallway, the darker into the abyss she felt she entered. She could make out the white paneled doors to each side of her. Old gas lamps on each side of the walls, made of brass, were nothing more than ornamental, for they didn't flicker with anything resembling light. She saw no shadow, no shapes, and no form.

She went to the first door and with a shaking hand, reached for the door handle. She started to turn the knob. She had to see for herself what was behind these doors. What made him the monster that he claimed to be? Then she screamed.

Someone came up behind her, pulled her by the waist, and rushed her with all haste up the stairs to the third floor. A hand was placed over her mouth, to muffle the sound. Her feet left the floor. The hallway here was narrower, the walls darker, but the gas lamps on the walls were lit, and there were windows at the ends of the hallway that afforded some of the light from the fading sun.

Pushed into the room she had slept in the night before, the one across from his, and pressed against a wall, she felt her interloper's chest against her back. "So fresh, so innocent, so sneaky. You were told not to go into the rooms on the second floor I believe. Do you know what happens to bad little girls who misbehave?"

That voice. It belonged to the blond vampire, Abel. In a sotto voice he said, "Shall I show you what goes on in the rooms on the second floor? Would you still think Black a saint if you knew the depravity that happens right here, a mere floor below you? Shall I take you downstairs and show you how real vampires treat little trinkets like you?"

"ABEL!" A voice behind him, demanding, yet questioning, scared Hermione almost as much as the man holding her. She shook and her stomach lurched to her feet as the blond vampire turned her from the wall, still holding her tight, and a menacing Regulus Black stood by the door. "Let her go."

"Your new pet was about to enter a room on the second floor. Why don't we just get it over with and show her what goes on in those rooms?" he asked. "You want to repulse her? I think that would do it." His right arm held fast around her body, his left arm petted her arm, her shoulder, her hair. She felt sick from his touch. She reached in her pocket for her wand but touched the journal first. Lifting it from her pocket, she let it drop to the floor, though neither man seemed to notice. Then she reached inside for her wand.

"I believe she is about to curse you if you don't let her go right now," Regulus said, no longer with urgency. He leaned against the opened doorframe. "I would suggest you let her go, or face her precious wrath, which might just rival my own." With ease and grace, Regulus bent at the waist, picked up the red, leather-bound journal from the floor, and placed it on the dresser beside him.

"Is that an order?" Abel asked with a wicked grin.

"Since when have I ever ordered you to do anything?" Regulus asked. "Another myth, which I'm sure Sanguini already dispelled for our young guest, is that I know, as well as you do, that you don't have to obey me merely because I'm your maker."

"No, but he does have to obey me when I have a wand pointed at his groin," Hermione said with a ragged voice. She pointed her wand downward and pressed it against the other man's body.

"That doesn't sound pleasant, Abel old man," Regulus said with a hint of sarcasm. "I think I'd let her go."

Hermione had a feeling Abel released her more so because of the menacing look and commanding way Regulus told him to let her go, than because she had a wand pointed between his legs. Either way, she was happy when the weight of his arm left her waist to leave her sagging against the wall.

"Come to me, Hermione." Regulus held out a hand. She tried to walk to him, but her knees wobbled and her legs shook.

She watched as Abel snuck off like a shadow, out of her room and down the hall. Yet relief would not show itself. She felt oppressed and angry by the other man's intrusion. Regulus stepped closer still, held out his hand and beckoned to her. "Come. I'll not harm you. I find that I want you as much as you apparently want me. No one will hurt you now."

She shook her head, an infinitesimal amount, and said, "I no longer want you. I just want to go home." She walked past him as he stood by the door and started out of it.

He closed the gap between them, took her in his arms, pulled her back into the room, gave the door a shove closed, and with his breath warm and sweet against her cheek, his chest against her back, he said, "I can't let you go now."

Hermione's eyes grew wide and she reared back, panic filling every fiber and molecule. He was right earlier. The man, the boy, who wrote in that journal, who took on the Dark Lord, all by himself, was long dead. She didn't know the man before her. His arms went deftly around her waist, one hand on the back of her neck, and his voice spoke softly in her ear.

"I want to believe you. I want to believe that someone could possibly think of me as something more than Black, the vampire. Are you that someone, Hermione?" Each word was a puff of air, moving her hair, fanning her face, fueling her want and desires. He kissed her cheek, which shocked her. The gentleness was overwhelming. When his lips went to her neck she froze, until she felt only the softest hint of lips, no teeth, no fangs, no pain.

Slowly she relaxed. A sweet languid honesty was in each of his kisses and it made her forget her world outside. The world where she was surely missed. It made her forget the man who scared her earlier in the parlor downstairs. It made her forget all of the things she could only imagine were happening behind closed doors on the second floor.

His lips tempted away her inhibitions. Turning in his arms, she clung to his shoulders, pulling herself closer so that her breasts pressed against his chest. She felt the hardness of his groin on her hip. And when his fangs scraped the tender, vulnerable flesh of her neck, she gasped, then let her head drop back, reassured that this was alright. This was still the man from the journal. This was the man she had looked for, for so long, and had finally found.

He eased her to the bed, his lips covering her face, neck and shoulders. The long, beautiful gown was soon peeled away. He willed the lights in the room to extinguish, so the glow of the moon was the only light upon her ivory skin. He seemed fascinated with the shape and roundness of her breasts. Lifting his head from her face, he stared at her chest while his hands went smoothly around each globe, down the center of her chest, then skimming his knuckles around the outside.

She reached for his face with one hand and cupped his cheek. Smiling at her, he looked into her eyes, at first shocked at what he saw. He saw genuine caring. He saw a woman who wanted nothing more from him than to care for him…Regulus Black. It was an odd feeling. He kissed her mouth deeply for the first time. He drank from her mouth, his tongue dancing with hers. She was sweeter than wine, her inherent taste sweeter than any blood he had ever had.

He moved his hands as he moved his lips, down to one rosy tipped breast. Licking her until she whimpered and pleaded with him, her hands in his hair, her body moving under his, he flattened his tongue on it, then moved to the other, and then he sucked.

She arched upwards, moaning, pushing her chest into his face, pulling his head closer. She wanted more; she wanted it all, until she was crushed underneath him, him buried deep inside. She was a virgin, but it didn't matter. She knew what she wanted. She wanted and needed him as much as he wanted and needed blood.

He would surrender everything to her, and it would feel better than he could imagine. He had waited so long for a real release of all his anger and pain. He always assumed that the only way to rid himself of his anger and pain was with MORE anger and pain. Who knew it only took acceptance, love, and patience, from a mere slip of a witch who fell in love with a man from things he wrote in a journal, from when he was a boy, so long ago.

He would give up his wrath for her. No more empty nights. No more endless days. No more torment and pain. No more empty pleasures of the flesh disguised as love. This woman was delicate, flawless, perfection, and she was his.

He kissed his way up her chest, back around her jaw, as she kissed his cheeks and forehead. He looked into her eyes and said, "How did you know that I needed this? How did you know that I needed you in my life?"

"I know everything about you. I told you. I fell in love with you before I met you, from your journal," she replied.

Suddenly, a frightening expression schooled his features and he stopped. He moved slightly away from her, his hand on her bare stomach. Every muscle in his body trembled as he willed himself still. Here was everything he ever wanted, but it wasn't enough. He wasn't enough. Why did she have to keep mentioning that journal? She read more into that journal than she should have. He could never live up to the man she wanted him to be.

And he knew that she knew it, because for some reason, she was on the verge of tears, and when a tear fell down her cheek, to the pillow, he caught it with the end of his finger. He looked at it for many long seconds before he placed his finger in his mouth. Yes…her taste was all that he expected and more.

This wasn't right! He wasn't right. She was beautiful…he was scarred and ugly. She was goodness and light. He was dark, unholy and evil.

His silence, and the questioning look in his eyes, along with the weight of his body still pressed against her, stilled her. "What's wrong?" she asked.

If he still had a beating heart, he would tell her every secret within it, but all he could do was sit up, push away from her, and then heave himself from the bed. Without looking at her he said, "You disgust me." Every word was directed to her, but he said it about himself. "You make me sick. You'll never be good enough."

He refused to look her way. "GO! LEAVE ME!" he bellowed.

"No, I won't go. What's wrong?" she begged. Confused, she moved quickly from the bed, placing the gown over her arms and body, and when she walked behind him, to ask him what he meant, he moved with grace and agility out of the room, closing the door behind him. She went to the door and tried the handle. He had locked it from the other side.

She looked for her wand. It was gone.

Out in the hallway, on the other side of the door, he said, "This is for the best, Hermione Granger. I want to be the man you want me to be, but I'll always be the monster, full of anger, who only wants you for your blood. You'll stay in there until the morning, and in the morning Cain will escort you home. You are never to return. You'll never tell a soul you found me. You will forget about me."

She banged on the door with both fists. "You can't make me forget about you!" she shouted. "I won't forget! If nothing else, I'll always have the memories from the journal!"

Suddenly, she looked at the dresser, for the journal.

He had taken that along with her wand.

She slipped to the floor by the door, and cried.