Cold lips worried at the hollow behind Robin's ear, raining icy kisses along his jaw and throat before tracing small, wet circles down the column of his neck.

Robin shuddered, his fingers curling in his bed-sheets for support.

"What a pretty picture you make," the dark figure whispered, teeth glinting in the moonlight, as he smiled against Robin skin. "You're mine."

"Yes." Robin's pants tightened at the vampire's words, and he moaned, tilting his head to give him better access to his throat. "Yours."

The vampire mouthed at his pulse point, before sinking sharp fangs into the tender flesh of his jugular. Robin hissed. The pain was both more and less than he remembered, though soon he could think of nothing beyond his own intense need to be devoured—to be claimed.

He gasped as the creature sucked, the sound wet and positively indecent.

"Please, Vlad" Robin whined, grabbing the vampire's hand and bringing it to his erection. "I need…."


Robin lurched forward in his chair at the sound of the school bell, his forehead nearly hitting the desk. He blinked, bleary-eyed, and, when he realized where he was, bit back an exasperated groan.

It was the third time he'd fallen asleep in class that morning. And, for the third time, he'd awoken from an oddly intense dream. So far, each had left Robin shaking; not only because of how real they felt, but also for the reaction they invariably left him upon waking.

Robin regarded his neighbors self-consciously, hoping that the desk obscured the worst of the evidence. He caught a few students looking his way, but none seemed to have noticed anything amiss.

Students had already begun filing out of the classroom. That would be lunch.

Robin stood, gathering his things, and suppressed a violent yawn. With any luck, having a bite to eat would help him feel vaguely human again.

He glanced at the desk two aisles over.

Christ. Jonno was staring at him again. Robin lifted his bag, half walking, half running from the classroom.

His escape was unsuccessful. Jonno managed to corner him outside the men's lavatory.

"Branaugh. Slept well, I trust?"

Robin blinked tiredly. "No." Sidestepping the other boy easily, he made his way down the hall amidst a sea of similarly brain-dead students.

A hand landed on his shoulder. Robin turned, scowling. "What's your problem?" he demanded.

Jonno leaned in. "Haven't seen Vlad around lately. Is he sick? Just in time for his birthday?"

Robin rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Weirdo." He kept walking.

"Who're you calling weird, weirdo number 2?" Jonno called out to him, but Robin ignored him in favor of making a beeline for the lunch hall. He simply didn't have the energy to deal with slayer-spawn's idiotic insults this morning.

He paused in front of his locker. The coast was clear; Van Helsing had evidently given up. He rubbed his forehead. Things at school were all starting to look disturbingly familiar: just like in the days before the Draculas had come to Stokely.

It wasn't just the teasing. Ever since Vlad had stopped coming to school a week and a half ago, everything about his classes had just felt… pointless.

He'd considered dropping out, but his parents would never sign the paperwork. And Chloe and Vlad would box his ears for even thinking it.

He breathed deeply through his nose. Don't think about Vlad.

Next period was Painting, which was probably the only class, other than his first year Drawing class, that he'd ever enjoyed at this god-forsaken school. After that was Trigonometry, and then by god, he just had to make it through Biology and he'd be golden.


"Hey, Chloe."

Chloe glanced over her shoulder. "Oh, hi, Jonno. Ready for class?" She waited patiently until he'd caught up, then walked with him in the direction of Classroom 3B.

"Yeah. We've been paired up for History. Is that okay with you?"

Chloe bit her lip. She supposed she couldn't complain, seeing as she'd left before partners could be declared. In all of the fuss over the amulet, she'd completely forgotten to check who she had ended up with. "Sure, why not?"

"Excellent!" Jonno beamed. "D'you want to meet up after school to plan our outline?"

Chloe hesitated. What she wanted was to check in on Vlad, so they could discuss the pros and cons of magic-assisted surgery; and, more importantly, so she could demand to know why Robin was being even surlier than he normally was.

She sighed. After the events of last night, she'd hoped the boys might finally relieve some of that damned obvious sexual tension; or at the very least have a much-needed heart-to-heart about their feelings for each other. But, alas, whatever had happened between them couldn't have been good.

Still... Vlad would be asleep until evening anyway. She supposed there wasn't any harm in it. Plus, having Jonno over would allow her to keep an eye on him. She might even learn something about the Van Helsings' latest scheme for infiltrating the castle. With those two, there was always a scheme.

"All right," she said finally, smiling up at her new history partner. "Let's meet out front at two, shall we? My mum's picking me and Robin up from school, so if you don't mind the company we can catch a ride back to my house together."

Chloe half expected him to decline the offer. She knew Jonno and Robin didn't get along.

But if the notion of spending extra time with her brother bothered him, it didn't show. Jonno nodded. "That'd work. Thanks!"

They arrived at the classroom. "After you," he said, gesturing to the door.

Chloe hoped her irritation wasn't too obvious. She hated when men did that.


Vlad stared at the carnage that used to be his room; a casualty of last night's complete and total disaster.

All of the papers that used to litter his desk were currently sitting in piles of ash, along with a majority of his clothes, his old schoolbooks—anything in his room that even vaguely smelled like Robin had had to go. Which was most of it.

He had kept one souvenir—a single photograph of Robin and himself, taken when they were 14. In the picture, Robin was scowling, wearing a fishing cap, as Vlad beamed at his side, an arm flung over his shoulder. A rare moment of happiness in Vlad's otherwise bleak, blood-and-guts filled childhood. He smiled at the memory.

Vlad had, of course, tried not being totally, utterly devastated by Robin's reaction to his confession; but then again, he had also, obviously, failed. Miserably.

Now that he had had a few hours to himself, to clear his head—along with most of his worldly possessions—he could see that perhaps he had been overreacting. A bit.

After all, Robin hadn't been mean. He hadn't been disgusted with Vlad in the slightest. Vlad had been expecting him to shout, or curse, or maybe even call him filthy names. But he had done none of those things.

In fact, as far as Vlad could tell, Robin hadn't felt much of anything at all.

And that, Vlad had decided at some point during his slow, rainy walk back up to the castle, was in a way much worse than outright rejection. He was used to that sort of reaction from people. He knew how to handle disappointment; knew just what to do when met with violence and rage.

But did Robin have to just sit there? Vlad had kissed him, shown him just one hint of what he really felt for him—and even that brief contact with Robin's lips had been glorious—but Robin had done nothing but sit there in shock.

Vlad growled, tossing the picture over the side of his coffin. He wished he could just hypnotize himself asleep. He could use a bloody break. He deserved an escape from this emotional purgatory.

A half hour passed. The minutes crawled by.

He lay motionless for another hour, stewing in self-loathing. He refused to move, say, or do anything until he fell asleep. His brain could go screw itself. Lot of good it had done for him, lately.

Around noon, Vlad's eyelids finally began to flutter. By half past, he sank gratefully into darkness.


"What took you so long? I've been waiting for ages," Robin hissed, spotting Chloe as she turned the corner. Jonno was with her as well. Robin's eyes narrowed. "And what are you doing with him?"

"Be nice," Chloe admonished. Jonno looked unfazed. "We're partners for History. He's coming home with us today."

Robin's glare never wavered. "Fine," he grumbled. "Mum's idling."

The three of them headed to the car, Robin trailing behind the others while scuffing his feet.

He felt like he was going to be sick.

All through the car ride, Robin couldn't shake the one fear that had been plaguing him all day, though he'd tried desperately to block it out.

What if Vlad never talked to him again? What if this was it, the end?

He squeezed the bridge of his nose, guilt roiling in his stomach. Leave it to him to alienate the only friend he'd ever made, not to mention potentially putting an already at-risk, suicidal vampire closer to the edge.

"Robin, do you mind?" Chloe scowled as they pulled onto their street. "That dark cloud over your head is fogging up the glass. We're trying to have a productive conversation in here."

Robin scowled. He glared briefly at Jonno before turning back to stare out the side-door window.

What if Vlad tried to off himself again?

He badly wanted to talk to Chloe about all of this, but she was thoroughly distracted by talk of… whatever it was they were talking about.

Trust Van Helsing to ruin everything. As usual.


The second they were all inside, Robin charged up the stairs, leaving Chloe and Jonno in the dust. Mrs. Branaugh offered the two of them tea, which they politely accepted.

They chatted for a while about their outline, munching on some biscuits, Jonno stopping every now and then to make notes. Chloe had offered, but Jonno insisted. "I'm sure you always get roped into doing it," he'd said, by way of explanation. Privately, Chloe had to agree, and she'd been pleasantly surprised that Jonno would ever consider something like that. She was lucky to have gotten such a considerate partner this time around.

After working on vampire-related problems for several days straight, Chloe was craving a dose of normal, everyday nerdiness. Truthfully, she was excited for this project. Medieval history had always fascinated her, and from what she could gather, Jonno seemed to actually be somewhat interested in the topic as well.

"So… did you want to use your computer, or mine?" Jonno asked, pulling the page of scribbles out of his notebook and smoothing it on the table.

"Oh, mine," Chloe said dismissively, taking the outline and scanning it. "My laptop's in my bag. Do you mind?"

Jonno nodded. Chloe's brow furrowed as she reviewed their progress. "I'm not sure what we should do for the last part," she said eventually. "If we split up the research, I think we could each spend some time going over the various aspects of religious ceremonies, since there's so much to talk about. Or, since we haven't discussed music yet, you could cover religion and I could look more into the history of madrigals?"

She shot him a questioning look.

But Jonno was staring at her laptop with a bemused expression. "Started work already, did you? I always knew you were an over-achiever, but still."

"What?" Chloe glanced over his shoulder to take a look at the screen. Her eyes widened. "Haha, oh, that…." She had forgotten to close out of the tab detailing metallurgical binding practices from the 1200s. Jonno didn't seem to notice anything amiss—such as the frequent mentions of magic throughout the article—so Chloe did her best to stay calm as she reached over him to close out of the tab.

But the next page was even worse. Right in the center of the screen was a picture of the amulet. "The Amulet of Ec…?" Jonno read, struggling.

"It was a gift idea for my mum," Chloe said, thinking quickly. "Although I'm not sure I'm going to get it after all; it's a bit hideous, don't you think?" She glanced at Jonno out of the corner of her eye, and went to close out of the tab when he stopped her.

"Hang on—that's weird."

"What?"

"It's just…" Jonno hesitated, before shaking his head. "Nah, it couldn't be. Never mind."

"Can I close out of this, then?" Chloe schooled her features into a neutral expression.

"Yeah." He laughed easily. "I'm not sure why, but that necklace looks oddly familiar. Where would I have seen something like that?" Chloe nodded, hoping she didn't look as nervous as she felt.

Probably in one of your father's books on slaying lore, she thought. It was entirely possible that Jonno had seen it, perhaps in a painting somewhere, or an illustration.

She closed out of the tab and, much to her relief, Jonno seemed content to change the subject.

As they returned to their work, Chloe berated herself for having left incriminating information open on her computer where anyone could see. If the Van Helsings caught wind that they had been searching for the amulet…. It would spell certain disaster for the Draculas, to say the least, if not all of vampire kind.


Up in his room, Robin was busy hitting his head against the wall, repeatedly.

Sunset wouldn't be for a few more hours, so he still had time to think. Provided Vlad actually stayed put.

What was he going to say to him?

There were a couple of problems. First, there was the fact that whatever he did, Robin had to convince Vlad to continue drinking his blood. There was no way Robin was going to have his soul 'anointed' by some priest, leaving Vlad to suffer with his addiction alone, and potentially go crazy from the desperation.

They hadn't discussed it, but, really, none of them had any idea what would even happen if, for example, Robin suddenly died and his blood were no longer available. Would Vlad's addiction end? Probably not.

In all likelihood, Vlad would have immense difficulty switching to soya substitute or even animal blood. And that meant he would pose a constant risk to the humans around him. Robin knew Vlad—if it came to that, he would probably either lock himself up in the castle forever, slowly wasting away, or….

Robin hit the wall with his forehead. Whenever he thought about Vlad choosing suicide, his gut wrenched horribly and he felt dizzy. He wasn't going to let that happen, so long as he was still able to do something about it.

Then… there was the other problem.

Robin squeezed his eyes shut. If he concentrated, he could just barely make out the sounds of conversation coming from the floor below. He chewed on his lip, allowing his mind to drift into dangerous territory.

Trouble was, he had never thought of himself as gay. He had always had crushes on girls, always fantasized about girls; he'd pictured himself one day marrying a woman, perhaps once he finally moved the hell out of Stokely, as he'd always planned to do one day.

But then why had Vlad's kiss felt like waking up?