Sophie gasped and put a hand over her mouth. No! He heard me! She heard someone climbing the stairs to where she was supposed to be, causing her to panic further. Damn! God in Heaven please don't let me be caught. She looked to her right to see Charlotte near the top of the stairs with a sad look upon her face. Her name was called by a tired Jonas.

"Coming, Jonas!" Charlotte quickly returned down the stairs. Sophie let out a sigh of relief. As she turned to see if Howl had heard her, she was horrified to find him standing before her. She gasped loudly and was about to scream when he covered her mouth and grabbed her around the waist to drag her back into his office. Once the door was shut and locked he pinned her against the wall and looked into her eyes with a genuine gladness.

"You're awake." Sophie gulped and nodded for who wouldn't be terrified of the vampire's icy breath streaming down her wounded neck. "Excellent, we may begin then." Once she could focus on the man who held her to the freezing cold wall her eyes widened in bewilderment as she looked straight into the eyes of a man she never would have expected.

"H-Howl?" She stuttered. She thought she could trust Howl, was he the one who had done that to her late at night? Was he the one who killed Maria? Was he the source of all her recent misery and distress? He seemed far too kind to do such a thing. But then again, as the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover. Howl's cover was just too irresistable but she forbid herself from flipping the pages, terrified of what she may find within them. And that terror grew second by second with Howl's glacial breath upon her neck.

"Yes, Sophie." He nuzzled his face to the crook of her neck and inhaled, sending shivers down her spine as fear consumed her. "It's me." Sophie's eyes were wide and her voice silent, only whimpers coming from her throat. "Do you fear me so much as you cannot speak?" Sophie remained still and stiffened as he found her out.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you? I have every right and reason to be afraid for my own life. I know I'm selfish in that manner yet I can't help but fear for it." He pulled away from her neck and lightly grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"I will not kill you. You have my word, witch, that you shall never be harmed as long as you remain here, with me." Sophie's eyes were wide again, her mind clouded and confused at the name he had just notified her as.

Witch?

"Why do you call me Witch?" She questioned.

"Long ago, centuries before where we're standing now, we were in love. You a witch, and I a vampire." Sophie gasped and pushed Howl with all the strength she had leftover. It wasn't enough to even budge him, cause him to lose balance or struggle in keeping his ground. He grabbed her wrists and placed them over his dead, forsaken heart. She felt no beat, only frigid and bitter coldness, only ice.

"Listen, Sophie, and you will understand. We loved each other very much. It didn't start out that way, be warned. I was in need of a partner, a powerful alliance was called for in my fight against the world. I found you being chased by two angered men through the woods and I could feel your terror. They weren't just two weakling villagers, if they were I would've let you carry on your way. Surely you could've handled them on your own." Sophie looked at him, he was smiling, at the memory she supposed.

"Their eyes were lit red with hatred and knowing my curiousity I had to take a look in."

"So you followed?" She asked the vampire. Howl nodded.

"Indeed. When the larger one began sending fire balls in your direction that's when I decided to cut in." He chuckled. "Before I could do anything though, you had already turned them to ash. As you can imagine I was overly impressed with your work so that's when I decided to get to know you better. So I did. Your name was Eternity, and you had been cursed by another envious witch. She took everything mortal from you except for a few things."

"What were they?" She asked and his hands on hers tightened their grip just a little.

"You were still able to feel regret, sorrow, and able to commit the Seven Deadly Sins. The one you felt greatest for, was lust. People didn't know whether you were a witch or a succubus, but I knew, only because of the experience I had was the reason I could tell." She tried to pull her hands off his chest in outrage.

"How dare you speak of me in that way?! I have yet to sleep with a single man even once in my life and you speak of me as though I am a prostitute. I am no such lady, Howl, I am a virgin!" He kept her hands on his chest so she could feel the vibration of the satisfied growl he let out.

"Good." He growled in approval. "Blood would be spilt in any other situation." He continued on with his story. "We were fast friends and better partners. After a year of working together is when we began having feelings for one another. As you can imagine, what happens next?" Sophie bit her lip and silently sighed really not wanting to finish the blank spot in the story, but with no choice given, she continued for the vampire.

"We made love." Her voice was shaky but sure of herself. Howl smiled and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear that he proceeded to nibble on.

"Yes, Sophie, we did. We were going to get married but then something happened to you. Something that to this day I still can't answer. But whatever it was, it made you turn your back on me, turn me into ice and seal me in a steal coffin with unbreakable locks. The only way I could escape that coffin, was if you died." Sophie felt a strange pull at her heart, fear, terror, and guilt. She had never experienced all these feelings at the same time before.

"How did I die, Howl?" Sophie couldn't help but be a little curious at the cause of her past death, despite the rapidity of her heart's loud and painful poundings.

"You were killed by the local villagers after being truthfully accused and proven of witchcraft. You were burnt to the stake and they saved your blood as a prevention for a reincarnation. As you can tell, that didn't work out very well, thanks to yours truly."

"What do you mean? Why should I have to thank you?" He smiled a bit at her questions and answered.

"I stole the blood and your ashes. I tried to find another witch as powerful or close enough as you but found only one. She told me it would take centuries before you would be reborn. I'd wait for you the day after my death, Sophie." She shook her head as she felt the burning sting of tears in her eyes.

"Please I don't know what you want with me. I just want to go back to my home in the hat shop with Maria." She sobbed. Howl smiled gentley.

"Sophie, Maria's not coming back and you're not going back." In his eyes was the show of amusement and love. He had fallen in love with a stubborn witch centuries before and he would love this stubborn human just as much. He inched his face towards her. Sophie panicked and tried to back up further into the wall, struggling against him and trying to squirm out of his vice-like grip. Her attempts were all in vain though, as Howl pressed his lips against hers. She calmed herself and felt all her defenses go limp as she exhaled in defeat.

The feeling of an unfamiliar relief washed over her as Howl took this as yet another triumph and pulled back from Sophie. He looked into her deep, brown eyes, fully aware that they held three incredibley specific and obvious emotions. Fear, confusion, and above all, lust.

"Don't be scared, Sophie." Howl whispered. "I love you, nothing you could ever do will change that." Sophie clenched her eyes shut to prevent the dreaded and hated tears and tried to hide her whimpers, her chest shaking as she held her breath. "Let it out, Sophie, there isn't anything you need to be afraid of." She let out a gasp of air and pulled her hands to her watery eyes to let herself let out a few excess tears that she wasn't capable of blinking and breathing away.

"That's my girl." Howl praised her. Then he grabbed a hold of her neck as she let the tears flow, and studied her reaction. Her foggy brown eyes looked at him with with no protests hidden within. Her facial expression basically told him to do what ever her wanted. He let out a small, barely audible sigh. Swiftly and gracefully, Howl's mouth was at her neck. He kissed it tenderly, licked it seductively, and her started taunting her by nipping at the sensitive flesh every so often. He slowly traced his tongue from her collar bone to the shell of her ear, letting out a freezing puff of air that made Sophie toss her head back lightly.

He found his way back to her lips and began to kiss her with a long awaiting passion. At first she was unsure of what she wanted to do, and then she began kissing back. Her hands framed his perfect and flawless face as her lips moved against his own cold pair. He spoke to her in a lustful whisper.

"This will hurt greatly, but only for a moment. Try to remember Sophie. Try to remember everything." Sophie could only hear every other word from the stress Howl was putting on her shoulders and was about to ask him to repeat himself. But that's when she felt a sharp, agonizing and brutal pain at the base of her neck that caused the flesh itself to begin pulsing. She attempted to scream, yet nothing came out. Even more tears flowed freely in their own seperate streams as the awesome pain increased.

She reached for it, but was surprised to see that her hands had found Howl's midnight locks at the source of her pain.

He was the one causing all of her present agony. He...he bit me again. She recalled that he had introduced himself as a vampire but hadn't actually thought he was serious. There were only two vampires left in the world, she didn't think that she could possibly be one of their former, murderous, blood-thirsty, and encahnted fiancees. She felt more of her energy drowning in her own blood and transferring to Howl. It was in the very same spot, and the very same torture she had gone through when he had previously bitten her.

Her breathing became heavy and her vision began to fade. Before she totally black out, she snapped her head back and pulled Howl's fangs deeper into her neck and moaning at the rare feeling of extreme pain. Howl clutched her waist and forced his hips into hers as he kept drinking from her. He let out a hiss, signifying that she was begining to turn him on a great deal. She didn't notice, however, because of the affect the wound had on her. She was well aware that this could kill her, but she didn't have a care in the world for it.

She never got to feel pain, ever, and she relished it like a much cherished family heirloom. She loved the pain Howl gave her and it caused her to buck her hips against his. She let out a gasp when she felt his hardening erection lightly poke her inner theigh and this only caused her to grind harder. She had never loved a physical pain so much, and she had never been this intimate with anyone before.

Howl threw himself away from her, pushing against the wall and out of Sophie's desperate and needing grasp. Sophie held onto her neck as the erupting sensation weakened little by little. She stared at Howl with an unreadable gaze. She watched him wipe her blood away from his mouth and lick it away on both his glorious, soft, cold lips and pale, slender fingers. She moved her hand away and brought it to her face, eyeing the crimson substance with a great curioustity.

Slowly and carefully, her hand got closer and closer to Sophie's waiting lips. Her pink tongue poked out and skimmed the skin of her hand. It tickled her for a moment, but all her focus was on based on the blood that covred her hand. She didn't notice Howl studying the way she absorbed the taste and feeling of the blood coursing down her throat in a sweet melody.

She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes in relaxation. She felt her muscles loosen as the liquid slid down her throat with ease. Howl spoke up, wanting to know her opinion on the subject.

"How does it taste, Sophie?" He asked honestly. She replied a moment later, trying to find the right words.

"It's different. Metallic, unique, it can... it can quench any thirst of mine." Howl moved his hand over her cheek and kissed her forehead lightly. "I can uprightly say that I have never tasted anything quite like this. I... I like it." She kept her gaze set on her bloody hand as thoughts whirled through her mind like gears in a factory. "Is this bad?" She asked worried.

"No. It's a very good thing. It's perfection, I'm going to start working very hard now that I know this information. It's very important and crucial at that. Serious business like this is to be dealt with carefully and quickly." Sophie curled his fingers into a fist and uncurled them again, repeating the process twice.

"What do you have to do?" She pretended she was interested in what he was saying, thinking that maybe if she cooperated he just might let her go and she could go back to her hometown. But then she remembered that he would not let her go even if it meant the demise of the planet.

"I'm going to turn you. If I do then you will be able to remember everything that has happened, you will live for eternity with me, you'll always be by my side." She looked off into a distance with nothing particularly on her mind. She nodded once, showing she got the concept.

"I understand. Do what you must, I do not care." Howl cocked his head in interest.

"Why is that?"

"Even if I did find some way to escape, I have nothing to come back to. No one to welcome me with open arms and say that they missed me and they were worried sick. If there is no point in going back, why should I even try to?" Howl invisibley smiled to himself and stroked the brown hair that flowed down Sopphie's back.

"Right. There is nothing for you in the human village. The only thing you have to go back to is an interview from the police and your own death. You'll be forced to live on the streets now that you don't have a job. You could never pay the bills for the shop working only as a maid. Here there is no work that needs to be done, no financial troubles in the least." Sophie closed her eyes briefly and thought to herself.

"Is your brother really missing, Howl?" He let out a forlornly chuckle and told her the truth.

"No. My brother is the other vampire. He's only an adolescent so he's not very mature. Through the years he's seen loved ones die and he decided that since he would be stuck in the stage he's in forever he might as well act like it." He told her. She nodded twice, dazing off into whatever she wanted to think of just so she couldn't feel her mortal self disappear when Howl sunk his fangs into her one final time.

"What is his name?"

"My younger brother? His name is Michael. He looks as though he's a ten year old child but he knows more then he should. He can be mature when he wants to be, he just pretends he isn't." He laughed childishly himself at the recollection of his younger brother.

"And where is he now?"

"He is trying to find a way to revive our father. It's impossible though, I've researched and interviewed countless people and vampires yet it was only out of pure interest. But once the leading vampire has been assassinated there is no possible way that we can raise him back from the dead. He's been in denial ever since his death. It's quite sad really."

"How did your father die? Wait let me guess...you killed him didn't you?" Howl set his eyes downcast of hers with a smirk on his lips at the memory of torturing his father to death.

"I did. After all, he was the one that had accused you of witch craft. He was the reason why you had been killed by those putrid villagers. So when I was released and Jonas had told me everything that had happened, I went straight to this very castle where my father had lived and very shortly after, had died a cruel and unmerciful death. It's his fault you had been killed, Sophie, so my natural instinct told me to kill him as well, and then I did."

Sophie absorbed the facts Howl informed her of. It was horrifying, really, for her to be turned by this gorgeous and undoubtedly seductive vampire that had killed her friend and his own father. But then again, if her past life really did freeze him and lock him away, then maybe she deserved this. Maybe all of this was supposed to happen.

"Howl, are you going to turn me now?" He put his frozen hands on her bare shoulders, yet she did not shiver in the slightest.

"When you're ready and in a full state of mind I will turn you. I drank too much of your blood so you lost too much to be fully conscious of everything. Perhaps tomorrow night will be more suitable for the both of us." Sophie clenched her fists and shouted at him.

"Why is it that you stole me from my home? Why did you kill my friend and attack me in the late hours of the night? Why didn't you choose someone else?! Someone that actually wants to be a vampire o-or get caught up in your whole Eternity business because I am telling you right now, Howl, that I am not Eternity!" Her voice cracking every here and there, she let a signle tear fall down her cheek. "I'm not her. I don't care what you say or what you do, but I am not Eternity, Howl. I'm not."

Howl looked at her with a sadness that he hadn't felt before, could it be guilt? He left the question alone and grabbed the cracked picture of Eternity and held it lovingly. Howl put the golden frame in Sophie's shaking and trembling hands. She looked at it with a blank expression, more of an uncaring gesture.

"I'm not her. That is not me." She said, angered by how similar this Eternity girl, her supposed past life, looked like her. The only difference was the silver colored locks that were in a proud braid that cascaded down her back, the same length and style Sophie always put her hair in. The resemblance was uncanny.

"I can smell the lie your telling me Sophie. You know that she looks exactly like you. You and Eternity are the same person, just from different worlds and time periods. Stop trying to convinve yourself, trust me, you'll get a headache." He stated with a warm smile. She shook her head with her eyes narrowed, still staring at the picture of the beautiful socceress she was said to be so many years ago, centuries ago.

"I'm not trying to convince anybody. I know I'm not her, and she most definitely isn't me. We're two different and seperate people. We are not the same woman. There isn't anything you can say or do that will get me to believe you and your outrageous fantasies." He's right though. She looks just like me! Or is it me who looks just like her? No, no I'm my own person. Or am I? Could I truly be this witch, this Eternity character who has captivated Howl? His obsession?