Hello! I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day and/or Chinese New Year! Thank you again to all of you who sent reviews and questions, I did try to answer them all. Once again, I apologize for the un-betaed quality of this chapter.

I'm going to apologize to any Edward Cullen fans out there. I'm going to ruin the nice friendly vampire concept. Or rather I'm going back to the classic original vampire concept before Anne Rice novels, the Buffy TV series and Twilight.

A Dragon's Heart – Chapter 14

On the edge of his awareness Natsume heard Imai asking Koko if he could read Mikan's mind. He vaguely heard Koko answer no, but at the time he had more pressing matters to focus on. Like how he was going to shoot his fire so it would loop around Mikan and get the last of the bloodsuckers. No matter which way he looked, it was impossible. Fire was a wild and unruly element to control; it naturally resisted tight controlled movements.

It wasn't until he Imai stepped forward and spoke to him that his attention wavered. "I understand now. Natsume, torch straight through her. Yuu, cover the alleyway with an illusion."

"I can't without hitting Mikan." He told her; annoyed that she was distracting him by making him state the obvious.

"Trust me." She insisted.

"Even I don't have that kind of control over my fire." What the heck was the inventor thinking? Did she have some reason to think the situation was not what it appeared to be? It could not be an illusion, because he could feel the bond he shared with Mikan and it was telling him he was looking at the real Mikan. The sea dragon's emotions were so volatile right now that it was hard to keep them from affecting him.

Hotaru gave him an annoyed look then called to her mate. "Hayate, burn them."

Without question the young black dragon did as his mate ordered. A long arc of fire, similar to the discharge of a flamethrower, shot out at the sea dragon and the remaining vampire. Natsume felt his breath and heartbeat seize up and the bottom of his stomach dropped out.

Objectively, the shot was far weaker than anything Natsume could have done, but it was still enough to cause serious damage. No matter how fast he was, there was no way he could stop Hayate's shot before the flames touched Mikan. As it was, he was frozen to the spot and he watched in horror as the only woman he had ever truly been attracted to was about to be burned alive.

And then something freaky beyond words happened.

Hayate's fire… just… fizzled out. It just shut off like a switch had been flipped or a balloon popped.

What the hell just happened? He didn't need to look behind him to know that the rest of his group was equally dumbfounded.

"I thought so." Imai said smugly, and Natsume was tempted to strangle her. Oh the inventor was in so much trouble when they got home. He would make sure Sakurano cut her allowance off for the rest of the month.

"What just happened?" he asked cautiously. With the exception of Mikan looking and feeling very upset, she looked perfectly fine. There were not even scorch marks on her kimono.

"Just trust me and take care of the vampire trying to get away. Don't worry, Mikan will be fine." Hotaru told him.

Still unsure about using his fire anywhere near Mikan, Natsume shot a small fireball at her. Again the fire disappeared when it touched her. He was still puzzled about what happened to his fire, but he was reassured enough to send out a long flame throwing arc in her direction.

The stream was still connected to his fingertips when he felt whatever it was that she was doing to it. If he thought watching it was freaky, feeling it was weirder. His power just somehow stopped when it went near her. It didn't feel like it was being sucked out of him or anything like that. It was just this void, an empty pocket where magic just did not exist. What the hell is she?

Still needing to get the final vamp, he tried increasing the intensity. When he was about three quarters of the way to his full intensity the flames were large enough to start reaching around her to the vampire who had been using her as a shield. Once the vampire realized his shield was no longer useful, he got desperate and tried running. A foolish decision on the vampire's part because once he was away from Mikan, Natsume let his anger take control to incinerate the undead creature in seconds. It was almost over too quickly for the red to feel satisfied. Calling his flames back, he surveyed the strange transformation to the alley.

With the last of the vampires gone, all that was left in the alley was a horribly traumatized and miserable looking Mikan. The ground, the walls, the trash bins, were all charred black with the exception of a small, tight, unmarred bubble around Mikan.

Questions were flooding Natsume's mind but he pushed them aside for the moment and hurried over to her, enveloping her in a protective hug. The contact still sent his insides churning, but his worry and adrenaline was riding high enough to dull its effect on him. Right now he was just relieved she was alive. He held her tight against his body with his face pressed into her hair so he could take deep inhalations of her scent. He held her until the tremors in her body went away. Even after that he continued to hold on to her. He would never admit it, even to himself, but he needed the contact as much as she did. He needed to reassure himself that she was real, still alive and with him.

He didn't know how much time passed before they were both able to calm down enough to think clearly. It could have been half an hour or it could have been a few hours. He had sent most of the others back out into the festival to check for anymore mystical creatures that looked to be doing something more than enjoying the festival.

"Do you want to tell me what happened? Why were they looking for you?" He asked Mikan once she had calmed down.

"I don't know why. I don't know anyone in Japan so I don't know why they came after me." From anyone else, he would have doubted them but he could just feel that she was telling the truth. The vampires' interest in her was just as much of a mystery to her as it was to them.

"Perhaps whoever sent them knew of your little secret." Imai said coldly, causing Mikan to stiffen in his arms.

"Why on earth would they care about that?" she asked. Natsume was rather keen to notice she did not deny having a secret.

"In the right hands it can be a very useful tool." Mikan made a disgusted snorting noise that Imai chose to ignore "You were not very truthful with me or my brother. You said that magic does not work properly around you, but that is not the truth at all."

Through the strange bond he had with her, Natsume felt something in Mikan close up. He felt a wave of shame and revulsion but it was not directed at the vampires or anyone in his group. It felt, oddly enough, aimed back at herself. It was like a solid wall around her. She was usually so fresh and open that it caught him off guard to feel those things coming from her. More importantly, it was starting to piss him off. It made him wish there were more vampires left to turn to a blackened spots on the ground. If Imai was hoping Mikan was going to say anything, she would have a long wait with the way the sea dragon was right now.

Hotaru must have come to the same conclusion because she continued to explain her theory "Magic does not work at all around you, does it?" She finished, and he felt Mikan cringe and try to wriggle out of his hold.

Natsume felt his eyebrows shoot up and his jaw threaten to drop. It was obvious there was something odd about her, but he had never heard of anyone that could just cancel out magic. All the questions he had put on the back burner of his mind along with a few dozen new ones all clamored to leave his mouth at once. They must have all got stuck together because the only thing he could say was "How?"

"Let me go I don't want to talk about it." Mikan ordered. Her head was down and her bangs were covering her face so he could not see her expression, but he could still feel her misery and self loathing. Mikan pushed hard at his arms to get away from him but he had no intention of letting her go. Instead, he tightened his embrace and stroked her soft hair. He still didn't clearly understand what was happening, but the one thing he was clear on was that he hated how it affected her.

"Come on," he said quietly against her temple, "let's go find somewhere quiet to sit down." He eased up on his embrace, but he did not completely let go of her. What he did do was adjust their arms so it looked like hers was looped through his. If someone were to look closer though, they would notice that he had a very gentle but solid grip on her wrist keeping her from getting away.

They moved their conversation to a small café, sitting in a far corner away from the other patrons. They had ordered some tea to calm their nerves, but no one was actually drinking.

"Someone tell me what is going on." Natsume commanded. There was Mikan sitting next to him, looking like she had been struck mute, Youichi was next to her, trying to offer his own comfort by holding her other hand. Hotaru and Hayate were across from him with Aoi and Luka on his other side.

"I think I have got most of it worked out, but it would be better if out guest explained." Hotaru started. They all took quick glimpses over at her, but it was clear she had no plans to say anything.

Imai gave Mikan a slightly peeved look for making her explain but began to anyway. "My brother and I both found his inability to heal her odd. She was drugged, but that should not have affected his ability to heal her. The only time he was successful was when she was fully aware of his actions. Then there was the magical seal on my door. I have never seen anyone manage to break that kind of seal, yet she walked through as if it were a normal door."

Natsume felt Mikan start to fidget, and reflexively he placed his hand over hers. He was not sure if he was trying to offer comfort, or keep her from bolting. A bit of both probably.

"And then of course there is the vampire."

At this point Luka spoke up "What exactly happened to that vampire anyway? I have never seen anything like that before." Aoi nodded beside him and had her nose wrinkled in disgust.

By now Natsume had started to piece together a few images and was starting to come up with a clearer picture. "Vampires are different from vampire-types in that they were not born as supernatural creatures. When you strip away all of the myths and glamour, all they really are is corpses animated and kept in stasis by dark magic. Without a constant blood sacrifice to keep the magic going, they will revert back to corpses." He explained for them.

The red might have made it sound easy, but what he was leaving out was that it was extremely high level dark magic. Certainly not something your garden variety magic user could cook up. Rumor had it that the first vampire was an extremely powerful mage that was dabbling in forbidden magic in a quest for immortality. He found it, but at the cost of his soul and a human life every few days for the rest of eternity.

Natsume turned and directed his next thought towards Mikan in hopes that she could clear something up. "What I don't get is how you were able to completely revert such an obviously old vampire. If I was able to overpower your cancellation, surely a vampire who is old enough to be dust in his un-sustained form would be too."

Mikan turned and gave him a sullen look for trying to make her talk about something she did not want to discuss. "It was probably because it was daytime and he tried to take my blood." She told him in a quiet bitter voice. Natsume felt guilty for upsetting her further, but it was clear that her unusual ability could cause further problems. It would be better if they were prepared for it.

He gave her as close to an apologetic look as he had ever given anyone while silently urging her to continue. She returned his look with a nasty look of her own then rolled her eyes in defeat. "He bit me, which means at least one or two drops of my blood would have gotten in his mouth. Unlike normal dragons, my blood seems to work in reverse. Instead of giving them more power it takes it away. He might have survived if it was night and he was at his full power."

Hotaru broke in to their conversation "How strong is this ability? Is it strong enough to revert a dragon to human form?"

Mikan shook her head "No dragons are too strong. Occasionally there have been weaker dragons who have had trouble transforming around me, but that was it." She said sullenly.

Natsume rubbed his thumb in small circles along the back of her hand in a soothing gesture. The others could not see it, but for some reason this was very hard on her "Are you sure you don't know who they were? Like Imai said, in the right hands that could be a formidable weapon."

Mikan jumped out of her seat and wrenched her hand out of his grip. "Is that your idea of a joke?" she hissed at him. Then when she noticed that she had caught the attention of the other people in the café, she sat reluctantly back down.

"Do you think I like being a freak among my own kind? Do you have any idea what it is like growing up as the only non-human kid in a school of hundreds? Can you even guess what it is like to be happy to meet another mystical being of any kind just because you are glad to have something in common with them? Now just try for a minute to picture that person hating you more than any other creature in fifty square miles because you are the one thing that threatens their mystical existence!" She was trying to whisper but her voice was developing more and more of a hysterical edge tainted with what was probably years of bitterness.

"Formidable weapon my ass, no one looks at me and wonders how useful I can be. They only see how I can be used against them." Those lovely expressive eyes started welling up and spilling tears out again, and once again Natsume felt compelled to pull her into his arms. Instead, he gave her his handkerchief and the others the tiniest head nod to signal that they should leave. Thankfully, Aoi and Luka took Youichi with them leaving him perfectly alone with Mikan. He was still very conscious of them being in a public place so he couldn't exactly pull her into his lap. The only thing he could do was loop one arm around her and let her lean on his shoulder until she calmed down.

For the first time since meeting her he did not have the overwhelming urge to throw her down on the nearest flat surface and have his way with her. Right now all he wanted was to see the cute smile she had been flashing all morning. After a while her little sniffles and hiccuping sounds faded away and he ventured to speak.

"Are you feeling better now?"

She nodded and pulled away, but refused to look him in the eye. "I'm sorry I should not have flipped out like that." She mumbled. She still refused to look at him so all he could do was look at her red splotchy face and nose.

"Hn." Was all that came out of him. Come on Natsume, think of something nice to say. He thought to himself, wracking his brain. He was painfully aware that with the exception of Imai, he was probably the least sensitive person in the entire festival, but surely he could come up with something. It was true that things like sensitivity, charm and good manners ranked about a fifty in the top ten most important skills for a dragon leader, but his mother, sister and brother were all kind people so surely there was some part of his DNA or upbringing that was decent.

He floundered for a few more minutes until it occurred to him to tell her she looks much prettier when she smiles. Yeah that was a good one, it sounded a bit corny, just wing it and try and make it sound nice, he told himself.

"You don't have a face that looks good when you cry." Shit. That came out all wrong. So much for winging it, DNA and upbringing. Mikan gave him an offended look.

"Well I'm sorry for not looking like a supermodel when I cry. Next time I'll try and give you some warning so you can leave find something more attractive to look at." She said waspishly.

"Look what I meant to say was that some people can look good when they cry and you are just not one of them." Shut up, shut up, shut up! Just stop! You are making it worse!

"Oh really?" she asked and her voice changed an octave on really.

And damn him and his competitive nature that he just could not stop himself from lowering his voice and octave and answering "Really."

The two of them sat there for a moment glaring into each other's eyes before she let out something that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a laugh. After that she started to chuckle, and from there it just took off and she started full out laughing. A few of the people in the café were looking at her as if she were unstable. Crying one minute and laughing the next, but he ignored them.

After a while her giggles died down and she gave him one of those beautiful smiles of hers causing his heart rate to speed up. "Thank you Natsume. I needed that."

I have no idea how that actually worked but I will not question it. "You… you have a really nice smile... and… for what it is worth, I'm not afraid of your canceling ability." That really does sound corny.

Mikan's smile faltered a little and then it grew three times bigger and eyes started welling up.

"Thank you Natsume." She leaned forward and gave a far too quick kiss in his opinion "and for the record, it's called it nullification."

Tbc

~*~

Okay just in case some of you need a little clearing up I'll quickly go over the difference between vampire and vampire-type.

Both types are human looking mystical creatures that feed off of humans.

Vampire-types are things like Incubus (male) and succubus (female) that use lust to draw in their prey and drain the life force of their lovers. Snow women are shy reclusive creatures that use snow storms to cause their prey to become lost. Doppelgangers take the form of their prey and drain their life force that way. Hmmm… sound like anyone we know? They are what are sometimes referred to as psychic vampires. They are born this way and feed off life, not blood.

Vampires are undead creatures. They were once live humans, but were granted immortality in death. Like Natsume said, when all the glamour is stripped away, they are a dead body that is kept moving and from rotting by dark magic. The problem with this magic is that it needs a human blood sacrifice to keep the magic working. Partial feeding from volunteers, animal blood, and blood banks do not work. No live human sacrifice, no eternal life.

Until next time!