Chapter Seven

Endless white surrounded me.

"A bit overwhelming, isn't it?" a male voice remarked from behind me.

I spun around to find a man with a white long beard and flowing white locks over white robes made of linen and cotton. He was sitting in a recliner with a table next to him. Tan wrinkles crinkled around serene sky blue eyes as he gestured to the empty chair across the table.

"Please, have a seat. It's been a while since we last talked," the man said.

A sense of knowing saturated my mind as I walked over and took a seat. A pitcher of white porcelain and two powder blue cups materialized on the table.

"Hope you don't mind, but it's freshly brewed green and jasmine tea," the man said with a chuckle.

I reached over and wrapped my fingers around the handle and picked it up to pour myself a cup. A sweet grassy aroma greeted my nose. "Smells wonderful."

I took a long sip, savoring the taste and then set down the cup. "I didn't expect this to be so hard."

"Life isn't supposed to be easy, Jessie," the man commented. "If it was easy no one would ever get the opportunity to evolve into a better version of themselves. Suffering has its uses, although it may not seem like it when you're going through the trials and perils that come with being alive on the physical plain."

"How much longer do I have till I'm sent back?" I asked.

"A few more seconds in physical space-time," the man replied with a hum. "You created quite the indestructible spirit in Jerica Shepherd."

"Yeah, she's going to be pissed at me when we come to," I said with a chuckle.

"You'll have a lot of explaining to do," the man agreed. "Things will work out in the end though. Right now it won't feel like it when you're sent back, but keep moving forward and be true to yourself and intune with your intuition."

"It's hard to remember that when I'm alive," I commented. "The emotions are so overwhelming and I get caught up in the turbulence of the inner discord inside my head. I've been through quite a lot in my past carnations, but this… this has proven to be very taxing."

"You'll make it through it, Jessie," the man told me in good faith with a kind reassuring smile. "Those boys will test you. You'll find yourself at lost for words and at times unsure of your next step, but I have good faith in you. Trust your inner wisdom, my child."

"Will do."

Pain like electricity shot through my skull. I felt my body arched as I gasped for air, taking in life giving oxygen, my lungs burning after what felt like I had been holding my breath for hours. I heard incoherent voices and indistinguishable murmurs as I peeled my eyes open to a blurry world of melded colors that gradually took the form of shadowy shapes and then faces hovering above me. Murmurs turned into half formed symbols and cutoff words above the white noise of ringing in my ears.

I felt like shit. Like someone had stuck my brain in a blender and hit the option for "mincemeat." I closed my eyes for a split second and then opened them again as I attempted to identify who the faces belonged to that were attentively watching me with concern.

"J-...sie?"

"-he… omin… oo.."

My brain took its good old time to restart. The ringing continued and I felt like my head was locked in a fog.

I tried to move my head, but two hands were firmly pressed to the sides of it, holding my head still. An angelic face with a fair complexion and thick dark brown eyebrows furrowed over intense ice blue eyes peered down at me. A curtain of platinum silk hung over broad shoulders and framed the face of an supernaturally handsome man.

The name of that person was on the tip of my tongue, but my brain couldn't retrieve it through the mental fog. His mouth moved as sounds and words faded in and out over the ringing.

" D-….not…. oove.., young… ne."

My eyes shifted to the other heart shaped face of a man with pale tan complexion and strange bright red irises set in a sea of a darker red for the sclera. Purplish bags were painted underneath his striking unusual colored eyes as messy fire engine red hair fell short of his pointed chin. I watched fascinated as his yellow shark shaped teeth move as he spoke to me. Again, my ears could only pick up certain sounds and fragments of words.

A shadow fell over me. Black wild hair framed a long and angular face as somber red eyes stared down at me. The other two men backed away, allowing him room. He brushed a lock of blonde hair away from my face and then scooped me up in his arms and cradled me against his chest.

Through the brain fog, I felt like something important had transpired, but I could not for the life of me remember what happened prior to waking up. I felt my eyelids grow heavy and then close, unconsciousness swallowing me up once again.

The smell of leather and gunpowder invaded my senses, bringing me out of a dreamless sleep. My head throbbed dully. Briefly, I thought I was back in my own bedroom, in my own mundane everyday life where fictional characters didn't turn out to be real people from alternate universes, but when I realized the walls were white instead of a pastel green and Alucard's riding coat covered me, my heart sank.

I rubbed my eyes and turned onto my side. My eyebrows shot up as I caught sight of a certain Vampire King slumped in the cushy olive and cerulean floral patterned chair in the far corner of the room, his eyes closed and face lax in slumber. His black hair had grown itself out and swayed about his head like black leafy kelp in the icy cold waters of the pacific ocean.

I slowly sat up. Dizziness consumed my head for a second, before vanishing as quickly as it set in. I put a hand to my forehead, confusion filling my thoughts. How did I end up back in my room?

I struggled to recall what happened. Large holes existed in my memory. I tensed as a hand caressed the back of my neck. I warily turned my head to find Sebastian standing next to the bed with a finger pressed against his lips, motioning me to stay quiet.

He offered a gloved hand to help me out of bed as I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion at him. I glanced back towards Alucard's slumbering form, before carefully and quietly as possible slipping out of the bed. My legs shook as I put weight on them. The dizziness briefly returned, making the world spin.

Sebastian easily caught me as my legs gave out. Shaking his head, quietly chuckling, he wrapped his arms around my waist to help hold me up. My throat tightened. A blush broke out across my cheeks as I found myself staring up at him, my breasts pressed against his chest. I swallowed nervously and looked down, embarrassed.

Sebastian guided me towards the door and out into the hallway. The door shut silently behind us by itself. The bathroom door across the hall opened and he guided me into the room and had me sit down on the toilet.

I raised an eyebrow at him as he knelt down to turn on the faucet in the tube. He couldn't be serious? Could he? "Uh… What are you doing?"

"Preparing a hot bath, my dear," Sebastian said plainly. My heart skipped a beat at the term of endearment. "You've been unconscious for nearly twenty-four hours. I'd thought a luxurious soak in a hot water might help loosen your sore muscles from laying in bed all day."

Hold up. Did I hear him right? "I was unconscious for how long?"

He slipped out of his butler coat and unbuttoned his vest before undoing his tie. "You have been dead to the world for the last twenty-four hours." His red eyes found my slate grey eyes. "Do you recall what happened before you collapsed on us and gave the Elf King quite the scare?"

I frowned. Again, I tried to summon up my memories of what happened before the world went black. Large chunks were missing as I attempted to remember what led up to me blacking out. I opened my mouth and then closed it. I sighed. "Most of it is missing. I remember having a helluva headache and feeling sick. I remember you barging into my room when I wanted to be left alone and sleep it off."

I shot him a flat look, letting him know I wasn't impressed with his actions. "I also remember going down to dinner but… after that… its blurry. Like huge chunks are missing from my memory."

Sebastian studied me thoughtfully as he rolled up his sleeves. He sighed. "I supposed it can't be helped. You collapsed, your heart temporarily stopping when Alucard shot down the entity that had separated itself from your body."

My brain struggled to keep up with his explanation. "Whoa. Whoa! Rewind. Something… what from my what?"

"Please undress and I shall fill you in while you soak," Sebastian replied with a closed eye smile that sent shivers up and down my spine.

I gave him an appalled look. "You're not serious, are you?" The thought of taking off my clothes in front of one of my all-time favorite anime hotties turned my cheeks ten darker shades of red. I instantly wrapped my arms around my chest self-consciously.

"My dear, I have seen naked humans of every shape and size. Trust me when I say I have seen it all," Sebastian said, trying and failing to assure me.

Again with the term of endearment. What ever happened to "Miss Wilder" this and "Miss Wilder" that? I looked down shyly at my frumpy pajamas. I was far from skinny. I wore a size eighteen in jeans and an XL or 2XL in women's shirts. I sighed and mentally steadied myself before peeling off my night shirt. My cheeks and ears burned with embarrassment as I slid out of my pajamas pants and underwear.

I consciously reminded myself that Sebastian had been around for centuries and more than likely had seduced and bedded hundreds of men and women, so nudity was probably nothing new to him. For all I knew being public nudity might be a common everyday sight where he came from.

"Does nudity not really affect you?" I asked self consciously as the steam rose off of the water filling the tube.

"Modesty is a human infliction," Sebastian stated plainly. "Demons have no need for shame or embarrassment."

He took off his gloves and offered his hand to help me into the tub. I titled my head, noticing his black fingernails on full display along with the Fautus mark printed on his left hand. I couldn't help but turn the hand with the covenant mark on it over to examine it. It was exactly like the one Yana Toboso drew in the manga.

Mesmerized, I traced it gently and then inspected his fingernails. "If I didn't know better I would probably think you'd painted them."

Sebastian gave me a queer look and then chuckled at my honesty. "You didn't appear to be disgusted by my true form during the confrontation. You are quite an amusing human, my dear. Does knowing you're in the presence of a soul eating demon not bother you?"

I looked at his bemused facial expression. "Well, the only thing that really bothers me is your disregard for personal boundaries, not specifically what you are. I mean I can't get mad at my cats when they hunt down a mouse and kill it. I definitely can't judge a tiger for killing a deer because it needs to eat. You're a demon. Alastor's a demon. It's what you are, a part of your very nature. I'm not saying there weren't times where I cringed when reading the manga, but that's because I'm human and I was raised in an Anglo-Saxon Christian culture. I can't expect a demon to act like a human when you were obviously raised in an environment very different from mine in a realm different from earth."

"Elegantly put," Sebastian said quietly. "You are quite the unusual human being."

"Well, that's just who I am. Being a little weird is not a bad thing," I replied earnestly and then climbed into the tub, trying not to think about the fact I was stark butt naked in front of the Sebastian Michaelis. I had often fantasized about moments like this one in my daydreams over the years, but I never thought it would actually happen one day. Sometimes I really wanted to pinch myself to see if this was really real or not.

"Now… I've interacted with humans for hundreds of years and I was quite sure I had come to understand the nature of humanity and its biology. Human souls are singular entities that resigned inside the body they're born into. Humans reproduce through sexual intercourse, so the events that taken place in the last twenty-four hours are nothing like I've ever experienced. In fact I'd venture a guess to say this is the only incident in all of known history that such an event has transpired."

"What do you mean?" I asked. My brain struggled to comprehend what he was talking about. What the hell happened to me? "Plain English please, Sherlock Holmes."

Sebastian gave me a look, raising one delicate arched eyebrow at my reference. "Your soul and body split in half to form two separate independent entities. It's not supposed to be physically possible for your biology to divide itself like a single cell organism and then reknit itself back together seamlessly. It's something other higher level species can do, but humans aren't supposed to be able to. It was like watching Athena emerge from the skull of Zeus's as a fully grown and independent adult."

My brain went blank. It refused to contemplate the implications of Sebastian's explanation. He was right on the money when he said human beings only reproduced one way. The idea of my very being and essence splitting itself at every level possible and then reforming into two separate and capable and wholly different entities sounded like something of pure fantasy, stemming from the very origins of mythology itself.

I pressed my lips together. My head was starting to hurt trying to even put the idea mentally into words so that my mind could process it. "H-How?"

"That is the question we're attempting to solve. It appears the longer we're here, the stranger events become," Sebastian replied. "It's like the very laws of nature no longer hold true and are subject to change at the whim of the entity that brought us here."

"So-um… Can I meet this… Um-person-thing that separated itself from me?" I asked quietly.

Sebastian gave me a surprised look. "I'd think you'd be ill at the very notion of meeting something so unnatural."

I chewed on my lip. How could I explain the need to see this for myself to a being such as Sebastian? I didn't understand the urge myself. Curiosity mixed with the need for confirmation of what transpired. "I just need to see it. The sooner I see it, the sooner I can decide how to feel about it. Or begin to try and contemplate the meaning and significance of it at least."

"You wish to see it to decide on how you feel?" Sebastian quoted, stunned. "Most humans are simply revolted by the idea that such an event could have possibly happened to them and yet, you want to try and wrap your head around it. You're an enigmatic case for a human. You've had trouble coming to terms with the idea of being transported to another entirely different realm and it not being a creation of your mind and yet when facing something far more impossible like your soul and body being split in half, you're oddly calm about it."

"Maybe I'm just in shock. Maybe I'll end up falling apart over it later when everything catches up with me mentally. Or maybe on some subconscious level I've come to realize that this is just now my reality and not some weird ass long dream or coma that I can't wake up from."

"So she's wide awake and truly back from the dead!" Alucard's voice declared theatrically as he phased through the bathroom door. I gawked at his entrance and instinctively covered myself. He leered down at me from his ridiculous height. "I had briefly entertained the idea that I had accidentally killed you along with the abomination that split itself from you. Your heart stop for a total of fourteen seconds."

I grimaced. "Wow… My heart stopped?" And there wasn't a single emergency room or hospital where I could go get an EKG for miles to check my vitals. I'm pretty sure having your heart stop beating for any length of time wasn't a good thing. "Like actually ceased beating, as in I literally died for a hot second? I don't know how I feel about that."

"You are alive and that is what matters at the moment," Alucard replied, kneeling down in front of the tub. "I see the demon hasn't tried to violate you since he's gotten you alone. Did you remove your clothes of your own accord or did you have some help?"

I blushed like mad. "I undressed myself," I muttered.

I looked from Sebastian to Alucard and then to Sebastian again. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I was out numbered and bare-ass naked in the bathtub with two gorgeous supernatural beings in front of me. This was a recipe for smut if I had ever seen it. Maybe I had been reading one too many adult romances in my spare time.

Alucard's grin widened, his sharp teeth glinting brightly in a predatory grin. Sebastian was giving the Unlife King an annoyed glare like he had interfered with some nefarious plot he concocted. Or maybe he just didn't like the fact Alucard was as prone to theatrics as he was and he didn't like being upstaged.

"It is a very tempting sight isn't it?" Alucard teased Sebastian. "An lovely naked woman half submerged in the bathtub just for your eyes until I interceded. I sensed you spiriting her away. Although I am disappointed you chose the bathroom across the hall. I'd chosen a more remote spot to violate her."

Sebastian glared at him. "What makes you think that was my intention? Perhaps I simply have more restraint than yourself, Count Dracula. I rather let the lady chose for herself and come willingly."

"Ya'll are perverts," I said bluntly, both insulted and amused at their exchange. "I am right here! If I want to be seduced, I'll gladly let you know it. Consent is sexy and besides, I'd might be up for a menage a trois."

Both predators' eyes glowed with unspoken heat at my bold statement. Both sets of supernatural eyes homed in on me. A chill ran down my spine. I was playing with fire big time.

"That is a bold statement," Sebastian said, his voice going low.

"You shouldn't tempt monsters, my dear," Alucard advised me softly as he leaned forward.

"You're quick to take back your words, Miss Wilder. I recalled you declaring you weren't planning on 'spreading your legs' for any of us anytime soon," Sebastian replied as he leaned in closer, reaching out to brush a lock of hair behind my ear. I thought I caught a glimpse of fangs as he smiled deviously.

I grabbed his hand by the wrist. My heart sputtered at my sudden boldness. "I'm not saying right now," I replied with a coy smile. Wow, did I grow some cojones or what, toying with these two dangerous supernatural entities? "You have to earn it first, my good sir."

Shock filled Sebastian's face as I let go of his wrist and promptly stood up. I could feel my legs turning to jelly on me as I tried for bravado in exiting the tub like some grand seductress. My foot caught on the edge of the tub and I would have face planted if Alucard hadn't caught my naked body. A deep primal rumble filled his chest as he stood up, lifting me clear off my feet.

So much for dramatic flare. I had been hoping to leave the two incredibly hot monster men in my wake as I gracefully made a sensual exit from the tub and out of the bathroom. Sexy points zero. Feeling like a total turd? A hundred percent hell yeah!

Alucard chuckled and leaned in to bury his face into my hair, smelling me. His hand cradled the back of my head while his other hand pressed itself at the base of my spine, pressing me completely against him. I stiffened when I felt something hard poking my thighs.

I felt another hand smooth itself over my exposed ass. My throat tightened and my mouth ran dry as I felt Sebastian slip behind me and gave one of my butt cheeks a squeeze. "Quite the bold little creature, isn't she? You shouldn't tempt beasts like myself and the count, my dear little trembling kitten. Maybe we should remind you just what kind of forces you are playing with?"

My core tightened at the sexually implications embedded in Sebastian's words. Oh dear lord! I might just come undone right there and then.

A long sexually tensed moment paused between all three of us. My breath quickened as Alucard tipped my head back and brushed the tip of his nose across the sensitive skin just beneath my ear. Sebastian took advantage of the vulnerable position of my body and slipped his fingers between the crack of my cheeks and traced my sex. I shuddered and closed my eyes.

Suddenly Alucard set me down and Sebastian wrapped a fluffy towel around me, covering me up. I gawked at both of them, blinking, halfway caught between confusion and sexual frustration. Like a choreographed dance, they both sent me charming smiles before exiting the room leaving me alone.

I shook off the fog clouding my judgment and cursed. "Fuck, girl. What kind of fuckery are you getting yourself into?"