I woke up in the bathroom to the sounds of a guitar, Cern's visit still fresh in my mind. Still a bit angry and yet still hoping it had all been a dream, I followed the sound into the livingroom.

Isaac sat on top of the small circular table near the kitchen, strumming idly at a dark acoustic. Josep was stretched across the leather chair by the couch, legs flung over the arm. When he saw me, he flashed a charming, nearly flirtasious, smile and nodded toward the couch.

For a moment, the music stopped and Isaac lit a cigarette. He was so calm, so at ease. Images from my dream walk assaulted me and I crossed my arms, sickened by the fact that he could be so casual after what he'd done.

"Should you be smoking inside?" I asked, a bit harsher than I had intended.

He glanced up once and went back to plucking the strings of his guitar. "With what I'm paying for this place, they should be providing a line of coke off the ass of their finest stripper."

I arched a brow, unable to think of a fitting response. What did one say to that? Thankfully, Sanurua came in with a glass of something amber and handed Isaac a bowl of cereal. Again I was a bit shocked.

"You eat Captain Crunch?"

He chuckled, setting his guitar aside to munch down. "Like you don't?"

Then came that nasty spike of irritation at his casual, strangely human manor. I wanted so badly to believe I'd only been dreaming. It wasn't just that a girl might be dead. As selfish as it was, I didn't like the thought that he'd fooled me. Of course I knew he fed, but a small part of me liked to ignore what I'd seen of his eating habits and imagine he could be merciful. I'd been getting comfortable around him again, stupid as it was, and that was only because I'd been pretending he wasn't a monster. At least not a deplorable one.

I watched Isaac finish his cereal and go back to his smoke and guitar while Sanura took a chair and set her laptop beside him on the table. My arms went around me as another thought struck me. What did it mean that I could ignore such things? Knowing exactly what he was, having seen it firsthand, how could I justify living with him a comfortably as I did? Did I ignore these things because I wanted to, or because, I just didn't care anymore? Was there a difference? Cern had told me that without my soul I would start to "harden". Was that already happening?

I needed proof, I decided, that Isaac was a bastard. I need to remind myself that he was a monster and that I hated him. If not, then I must be on my way to becoming just like him, and that was not acceptable.

Sanura cursed, swatting lightly at her computer screen, and spoke in a language I didn't recognize. Peeking over the screen, Isaac shook his head.

"No, no. You buy them out." He said, still strumming tirelessly at the guitar, "They're never going to be at a lower price, and if you drop that," he paused to wave at a name on her screen, "You'll have the money to spruce them back up."

"Are you giving financial advice?" I asked, moving toward the chair Isaac had neglected.

"Money management is an important skill no matter what you are, Mira. How did you think we could afford places like these?" Isaac laughed. "Vampire are not born with lavish fortunes."

Trying not to draw too much attention to myself I started searching the jacket Isaac had left over my chair.

"I kinda thought Colette was covering it."

He laughed bitterly, "Well, she was, until I talked her into this delay."

I glanced over at Josep who was watching me curiously.

"Are you looking for these?" Isaac asked, snapping my attention back to him and the pack of Marlboro Reds in his hand. Not knowing what else to do, I nodded and took one of the offered cigarettes.

"Um…light?" I asked, a bit tense. He noticed of course and glanced at Sanura, who shrugged and went back to typing.

"This pocket." He shifted, indicated his dark jeans.

I didn't bother with my usual refusal to play along, happy to be given an opening. Isaac looked shocked for just a moment when I pushed my fingers into his pocket and rooted around. Sanura paused to look between us, brow arched, while Isaac's shock was melting into something else entirely. His hand whipped out, pulling me closer, but my fingers closed around something cold and I felt my expression go hard.

He lost his wicked smile when I held up the broken bracelet between us. The silence became deafening.

I waited for the rage to with my proof. Waited as Isaac pulled back and titled his head at me. He ws wondering how I could know about what it was. How I could possibly have seen anything. And while he wondered, I was trying to understand why I couldn't muster the fury I'd been counting on. There was only that damn irritation. Why wasn't I flying off the handle as I used to over such little things? This of course made me angry, but it just wasn't the same.

"You were sleeping, Mira." He said, snatching the bracelet just as I'd read the name on the metal plate.

"Well, I just learned a cool, new trick." I replied with a scowl I nearly had to force. "You looked like you were enjoying yourself with Christy."

For a long moment, Isaac didn't move. His eyes, currently their mismatched colors seemed to boil with something violent and frightening. If not for my body being frozen, I would have backed away. Perhaps there was actual courage behind my keeping his gaze, so I forced myself to relax and seem stronger.

He didn't seem to be impressed.

"And when did your master begin visiting?" he asked, his voice a dangerous, silky calm. Putting a foot of distance between us, I closed the fist that had gripped the bracelet, feeling slightly dirty for having touched it at all.

"Don't start Isaac. I want to talk about you. What you did. I watched it happen." My arms crossed over my chest as I stared at him. "The way she looked after was…why did you-"

"Oook." Josep was suddenly behind me and forcing me to turn and walk toward the far hall. Isaac stood slowly, uncurling himself from the table like a snake, while his eyes remained narrowed on me. Josep's pace was brisk and unyielding. I stumbled forward, stopping only at the door to the last bedroom, then his pale hand shot out for the knob and pushed me inside.

"What is wrong with you?" He asked as the door snapped shut and locked. I spun to face him with an incredulous smile.

"It must be so difficult for all of you to understand us humans and all our silly emotions, but I am not ok with killing." Strangely, this felt like a lie.

Josep nodded, hands sliding into his pants pockets. "So we shouldn't bother feeding ourselves because it offends you. That makes sense."

"That's not what I-"

"And if I said your eating offended me, would you stop doing it as well?"

"Don't be stupid, I would die." I sighed and Josep stepped suddenly closer.

"Exactly. You would die." He turned my chin when I tried to look away, "I enjoy being what I am, just as much as you cling to remaining human, and this is the price we pay for that. Some of us were given no choice in the matter. Stop acting so childish and learn to live with it."

"But he wasn't feeding, Josep, he killed her for nothing."

"Do you not understand the respect he's showing you by not forcing you to witness these things? That he cares enough to keep that part of himself away from you? Has he ever shielded you before?" He shook his head with a humorless laugh, "You look for any excuse to remind him that you never wanted this and I must say, even I've grown tired of it." Josep released me to pace.

"I can't just ignore it, Josep." I ran my fingers through my hair, wincing at the knots that snagged them. "I'm sorry, but I just can't. Hopefully one day you won't have to put up with me anymore."

Josep's eyes snapped to me and darkened from their usual chocolaty color. "You assume one day you will go back to your old life?"

I shrugged, "Well, minus the hunters. That seems to be a big no-no with you guys." I smiled a bit and looked back up at him, but Josep was deadly serious. The air around him seemed colder as if he were leeching the warmth from the room.

"Listen to me Mira, you don't get to live the way you used to. You never can. You stumbled into this world by tragic accident, and I truly wish you had another choice, but you've seen too much."

I sank down onto the edge of the bed, my stomach twisting and watched him.

"Even if Colette and the others, miraculously, let you walk away from everything, you have seen a God now, you've been bound to him. You will never go back to your old life, so start getting used to this one."

"What do you mean bound?"

Josep cocked his head at me and looked as if he wanted to snap something, but paused to sigh heavily instead, "When Cernnunos came to you, it wasn't in the hotel room was it?"

"No, it was in a dream."

He arched a brow.

"But it was real, how else would I have seen Isaac." I said hurriedly, trying to cover that the first part had sounded so foolish.

Josep came to kneel in front of me, taking my hands. His expression was oddly apologetic and irritated at the same time. Like he were explaining to a child what they didn't want to hear. "In this dream, did he call to you? Maybe have you follow him somewhere?"

"I walked down a dirty, old hallway and went through this huge decretive door."

The vampire nodded, squeezing my hands gently. "Isaac was a distraction. He told me that the god had trouble getting into your head that night in the forest. I assume for him breaching your unconscious, unprotected mind would be much easier." I began to shake my head, but he hushed me with a finger to my lips. "All he needed was to distract you long enough to form a solid bond between you."

I stood up and stepped around him, "How could you possibly know any of that is true?"

With a resigned little smile, he moved to the door, "It seems you can't trust anyone these days."

And with that, he left me wanting to pull out all my hair.

xx

I waited in Josep's room for little over half an hour, trying to relax. Denying the idea that Cernunnos had done just what Josep said, seemed more and more foolish as I thought about it. What that meant however, was keeping me nervous. I had learned to lock Isaac from my head, to recognize the feeling that meant he was at the edges of my mind. Could I do so with a god?

The decision to take Josep's advice came with great difficulty. I still wanted to hate Isaac, but it wasn't just because of what he was. A part of me, deep down, still feared that if I didn't hate him with everything I had, he would make me love him again.

The truth was, though I tried my best to force it down, I still remembered the way he'd been before he'd stopped pretending. The way he was everything I needed. So perfect it was painful. He'd been able to read me so easily, knowing just when to hold me and when I needed space. He'd pampered me, and protected me; fussing over me when I had a cold, kissing my hair and tucking me into bed without making me feel helpless or childish. He'd made me laugh and took in every word I'd said like it was the most important thing in his world. Like I was his everything.

Such a wonderful actor he'd turned out to be.

That was where my anger came from. Not from fear or disgust. I was bitter. I hadn't seen through his act, or realized that every time he'd whispered that he loved me, it had been a lie. I was angry because the tiniest part of me wanted it back.

I wanted him to lie again.

"You're pathetic, Mira." I whispered, throwing Josep's pillow at the wall and standing.

No more brooding. I needed to accept this way of living, like Josep said. I had to come to terms with the fact that he'd hurt me so deeply and that he felt nothing for it. He never would. It would be easier to live with him that way.

Besides, what choice did I have?

This chapter seemed really choppy and rushed to me, and I apologize for that. It's my own fault for being so damned impatient to get back to the real bits of the story I want to tell. I'm hoping to get the next chapter up, sooner than this one, which, I'm hoping you'll find a bit more interesting. Mira can whine, I realize this, but she also gets flustered easily, and that is what I love about her at the moment….oh yes…

Anywho. Tell me what ya liked, what ya wanted to curse me for writing, and whatever else you feel like throwing in there. Barbs, gold, cookies, wenches. It's all good.