Back To School

Raphael held the cupful of blood in front of Gennyfer. He kept his face impassive as he watched her squeeze her eyes shut and grit her teeth. Black veins broke up her complexion and dark bags bruised the skin under her eyes.

"Please." Gennyfer begged. Then she raised a hand and would have slapped herself across the face if Raphael hadn't stopped her.

"Control yourself." he reminded her. "Control your hunger."

He let go of her wrist and she moved her hands to clutch at the edges of the chair she was sitting on. Wood groaned under her fingers.

"Trying."

One word answers were an improvement over the night before when she had only been able to growl. Then again, last night she had tried to walk into a church rather than run across a holy water soaked graveyard.

The latter was a lot less painful.

"Don't give it to me." Gennyfer told Raphael. "Don't you dare give it to me."

"I won't." Raphael walked across the room, his bedroom, and put the cup of AB- on his bedside table.

Gennyfer began to loosen up as her proximity to the human blood lessened. Her death grip on the sides of the chair relaxed and she opened her eyes, just in time to catch the bottle of pig blood that Raphael threw at her. "I thought we agreed…"

"It's pig blood."

There was a knock at the door. Raphael went to answer it, but not before he ordered her to drink the blood.

Jez kindly waited until he'd reached the door before she burst in. She looked at Gennyfer, who was hungrily draining the bottle, and then glared at Raphael.

"Is this why you never create fledglings, they all turn into animal-drinking slabaki?"

Raphael crossed his arms and calmly held his ground against her multiple insults. "She asked me to help her, Jez, and she is anything but weak. Three nights old and able to resist fresh blood after going without for twelve hours." He raised an eyebrow. "Could you say the same?"

Jez scowled. Raphael knew that three nights after her transformation the Russian vampire had still been slaughtering entire households for their blood. That was a long time ago, but Jez still hated to be reminded of it.

Instead of reaching out and snapping Raphael's neck, like she probably wanted to do, Jez stalked past him and snatched up the cup of blood. She swiftly downed it and crushed the cup with one hand, which would have been more impressive if the cup hadn't been made of paper.

"Well," she said, more calmly than before. "Try not to quash all her potential. I might be able to make a decent fighter out of her." She looked at Gennyfer, who had come over and now stood beside Raphael. "Tomorrow, twelve o'clock, in the dining room." Raphael stopped himself from chuckling. Jez tried to teach hand-to-hand combat to every new clan member, but most of them couldn't handle it.

It was amusing for Raphael to watch, when he had spare time, which was rarely. For this lesson though, he might be able to steal some time.

"I'll be there." Gennyfer said. Having gotten the answer she wanted, Jez left the room with the slightest hint of a smile. Gennyfer then turned to Raphael.

"So, what's on the lesson plan for tomorrow?"

Raphael thought for a moment. He wanted to see how she did with Bible verses, songs, anything that mentioned God. Running some tolerance tests with crosses, Stars of David, pentagrams, and other symbols of faith would be good to. He told her this and then added, "After your lesson with Jez, we'll go dancing."

Gennyfer blinked. "Dancing? Like, at a club?" Raphael nodded.

"Somewhere crowded, with lots of humans."

Gennyfer rolled her eyes up and looked at the peeling ceiling. "Are you trying to set me up for failure?" she groused.

"I want you to test your limits, like you were doing now."

"A cup of blood is one thing; a building full of people is another."

"I'll be with you, and plenty of the others will come." If only to see their professional leader actually entering a club. Raphael did not go out much.

Gennyfer sighed. "Fine. But you have to find me something to wear." She indicated her jeans and T-shirt, now soiled from three nights of wear. "No club is going to let me in looking like this."

Of all the female vampires at the hotel, Lily was the closest in size to Gennyfer, and she was very territorial when it came to her clothes. The last person to borrow a scarf from her now had to make do with one eye. Gennyfer had just set Raphael a very difficult task.

"I'll see what I can do."

Gennyfer looked at him, raised an eyebrow, and then held back a yawn. "Then I'll see you for class tomorrow."

She left the room and Raphael fell back onto his bed. He started mentally planning his lessons for tomorrow. He thought of them only as lessons, and he assured himself that the fact that he'd be going dancing with a beautiful girl, one who his mother would definitely have approved of, was of no consequence.

He almost believed it.

Almost.