Chapter 2

I woke up in a sterile white room with UV lights blaring down on me and UV bars on the windows. I knew all too well where I was, but I wasn't panicking.

I was much too exhausted to think of anything but the danger to my father, but my throat hurt too much to tell the slayers around me the information I had.

The one inspecting my throat for bite marks realised I was trying to talk and quickly sat me up and gave me some water.

"Calm down now dear, you don't seem to have any bite marks so you should be back in your own bed soon. Try not to strain too much before your father gets here to debrief you."

She spoke to me softly as I drank. But I knew I couldn't wait for Him to find me before I could talk to Dad. I pushed the cup away and winced with pain as I spoke.

"We have to evacuate. Put all systems on code red. Count Dracula is on his way."

She gasped but immediately jumped into action, slamming her hand on the silver alarm next to the door.

In minutes the whole base was packed into the vans as we prepared to move, but in amongst the frenzy I realised something. This was exactly what He wanted! If we left the base we would be vulnerable, an easy target for the vampires lying in wait in the darkness.

As I realised this I spotted my dad across the base, climbing into one of the vans preparing to leave. I screamed at him to stop and sprinted across the base to tell him what I had worked out but I was already too late.

Just as I reached his van the gates opened and the vans started to move, and there was nothing I could do as one by one the vans were ripped apart by the vampires lying in wait in the shadows.

I shut my eyes and turned away, wanting to give my friends a respectable death but unable to hide from the screams.

I stayed that way for a few minutes and then it was all over. Everyone who had ventured outside the gates was gone, including my father.

One of the vampire's human slaves, promised immortality in exchange for working for the vampires, walked through the gate and shut off the UV defences from the tower. The vampires surged into the base to finish off the last of us, and I felt Him coming up behind me.

I turned to face him ready to face my death nobly, when he barked an order in Romanian to the vampires surrounding him. They looked surprised but obeyed, moving off into the base and leaving us in completely alone. I watched them go then turned to look at him in confusion.

"Why did you send them away? Aren't you afraid to be on your own with a slayer?"

He laughed quietly and looked at me with those cold black eyes.

"Of course I'm not. I could wipe you out with a single thought; I've had years to train myself to become the best at what I do. And as you can see, what I do is utterly destroy slayer camps. I do hope you had a chance to say goodbye to your father before he died, I never did."

Looking into his eyes I suddenly saw past the hard exterior to the pain underneath. I gasped and reeled back, almost tripping up on one of the bodies behind me.

Vlad was following my actions with a small smile before he realized I was looking at him with sympathy in my eyes, not fear. He grew angry but he didn't scare me anymore, because in those few seconds I saw that the anger was just a front that he used to hide the pain.

He bared his fangs at me and his eyes turned red as he appeared right up close to my face. But I just reached up and ran my fingers through his hair, smoothing the tangled black mess until it gleamed.

When I looked back into his face his eyes were back to their normal colour and he was breathing heavily.

Slowly I moved up onto my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and time seemed to freeze as he turned his head to bring his lips to mine.

Then he jerked away and disappeared, leaving me alone in a base full of the dead bodies of all my friends.