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The next day, Shayla saw the first natural light she had seen since coming to this place. Rynst took her out, into the meadows that surrounded the large home. They sat underneath the stars and she looked up, into the large, ivory moon. It seemed strange to her that the moon did not look different to her eyes. The same moon had starred back at her a hundred times, as she worked out in the yard, or at a party. How could it be the same in such a strange place? She looked at it and sighed. At least she still had one link to her old world.
Her gaze turned to Rynst and she was calmed. She was glad to have met the man. She was especially glad to have met him before she had met Rylath. Shayla was sure if she had met Rylath first, she would be lost and starving among the many hills and valleys. With Rynst, she knew he would keep her safe and that he meant her no harm. When Rylath was around, she felt little and insignificant. He would hurt her if she gave him the chance. She thought again, Rylath did not need a chance; he only needed a small reason to hurt her. She shook the dark thoughts from her head and turned her eyes back to the moon. Her brother would be seeing it, while she slept.
Shayne sat on the top of the cave, bathed in the beautiful sunshine that had persisted since the hurricane that had taken his sister. He hated it. All of the light and beauty that surrounded him only irritated him more. The sunlight bounced off the white snow, all but blinding him. Animals strode through the forest in pairs, in packs and families and he wished they would all drop dead. He missed Shayla.
He understood why she had not come back yet, but he did not like it. He did not want her to stay away for too long. She did not wan t her to be gone so long she did not want to come back, or worse, she forgot them. What if she was hurt or some one was forcing her to stay with them? He was terrified that some one might be hurting her. His mother kept telling him everything was all right and Shayla was fine. He did not believe her. There was no way she could know, but he did. He always knew when she was all right and when she was in trouble.
He turned his eyes straight to the sun and just starred. Suddenly, all he saw as the moon. He stood and turned around and saw his sister. She was sitting next to a man in a kimono, safe and happy. Shayla was watching the moon she had watched a hundred times before. She smiled, looking at the sky, then the grass. “Shayne, I hope you’re not worrying. I’m alright.” His sister turned to look exactly where he stood. She reached out and pointed behind him. Shayne turned and saw a man in a blue kimono with long black hair and dark eyes he could not really see behind his glasses. “He’s taking very good care of me.” She said, eyes blinded to his presence.
He gasped and was flung back on to his back. He hit his head on the snow and gasped. He looked up at the sky, the beautiful blue sky. Soft, white clouds hovered overhead and he thought they were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The white wolf barked, calling him and he smiled, running down to her. Shayne hugged her, she licked him, and Shayne was really, honestly happy. Now, he knew she was safe. He did not have to worry, well, not as much anyway.
For two more weeks, her life went on like this, having all three meals at the exact same time every day. She practiced walking, at Rynst’s request, and took Rynst’s medicines at the exact same time, every single day. He offered to bring her books and all she had to do was tell him the genre she liked. She went through four books in those weeks. As soon as she finished one, he would go and get her another. He took her outside every night and she got to stare at the moon for as long as she wanted, or until she fell asleep. She always woke up in her bed, with a hot meal waiting on her. Aside from the occasional visits from Nyrya and the maid-like woman, her only company was Rynst.
Rynst slowly, very, very slowly seemed to grow to trust and even like Shayla. She was good company, not demanding and quiet. A lot of the time, she seemed embarrassed by the way; he catered to her. Over the weeks, he began to care what Shayla wanted, what made her happy. He only dared show it in the quality of her care. Each day, she woke and smiled at him. It was never a large smile, but it was content. He became used to that smile and almost allowed himself to look forward to it.
At first, he rarely complained about anything to do with her care. At first, it did not matter. By the end of the first week, he was sending back every sub-par meal. Some of the time, his reasons seemed trivial to Shayla, but they were rather important to Rynst. He wanted her to continue to smile at him in that contented way. He did not want her to cry again, not like she had those first nights.
Only once a day did he leave her side, even then it was only for minutes at a time. He said he left to eat, but she had a hard time believing he only ate one meal per day. She had never witnessed this meal, but she also never questioned it. She knew when he was ready to explain to her, he would. Sometimes, it was just best to be patient and wait things out, especially when it came to Rynst. He could not, would not be rushed. He did things in his own time, at all times. Occasionally, if she caught him on a good day though, she could get him to do something for Shayla on her own time.
Shayla woke up in the night to something heavy and wet pressing down on her wrist. She tried to pull away, but something freezing cold clamped down on her wrist. She tried to pull away again, slowly rising out of her deep sleep and realizing something was wrong. She ripped her arm from the grip of what ever was at the side of her bed as she become fully alert. She saw it looking at her and slid back on the bed, away from what ever it was. “Relax Shayla, I just wanted a taste.” It rasped out with a voice like tree limbs against a window. “You smelled so very delicious.”
It smiled in the darkness at here, revealing a pair of pale white fangs that slipped down over almost nonexistent lips. It had a ragged face covered in skin more pale than ivory. Long oily strands of hair fell in its face and over black pits that should have held eyes. Its features were sharp and half cloaked in shadow, by some trick of the moon. Instead, they held only a dark, foreboding glimmer in their depths. Shayla whimper and it is suddenly bathed in a harsh orange light before it was thrown back into the wall.
Rynst rose before Shayla, blocking her view of the monster curled up on the other side of the room against the wall. It rose slowly, standing on shaky legs the size of twigs in all black. “What’s going on?” Shayla asked quietly, fear changing her voice, raising it a pitch.
“I suggest you leave now or die Ichiro.” Rynst said with anger Shayla had never heard him convey before. She had never heard him betray his emotions so blatantly, so forcefully. His threat even made her heart constrict with fear. She could not help but wondering how bad this must be for him to show such anger. It was like icy lightning scorching the very air in the room.
“Don’t you want to taste her? You cannot say you have not smelt the sweet bitterness of her, like dark chocolate. I’m willing to share.” The man called Ichiro said and she pulled herself closer to the wall. She did not understand what he was talking about, why anyone would want to taste her. All she could hear was her heartbeat, just below the conversation. If that conversation was not so confusing and important, she would not have been able to hold onto it. In any other situation, she would have let it go and let herself fall into the quiet, black void that was unconsciousness.
“This is your last chance to leave this room with everything attached to your body. Leave.” Rynst said and Ichiro let out a low venomous hiss before moving with inhuman speed towards the door.
“Rynst what the hell was that?” Shayla asked, her voice still quivering with fear, but less pitchy. “What was he talking about, you wanting to taste me and sharing and…”
“Sit down and relax Shayla.” He said and she realized she was standing. With a small sigh, she lowered herself to the bed and looked at him. Quiet fear and anger mixed inside her, a mask for the terror that still ran though her like ice water. Rynst was supposed to be taking care of her, yet this thing had gotten in and tried to… well, she did not know what, but she knew it was not good. “Things here are not as simple as they seem.”
“No shit Sherlock.” She screamed at him angrily.
“He was a vampire, as am I.” he said and she shook her head. It could not be true.
He closed his eyes and a look of concentration comes to his face. His canines extended down over his lips and she gasped. She watched as his skin color changed from its already unhealthy shade of ivory to the pale blue tinge of death. His neatly kept nails grew out to furious claws as she backed into the wall. Rynst opened his eyes and they looked like black coals shining at her. Shayla whimper and flattened herself against the wall in fear.
“No.” She whispered quietly. That thing could not be Rynst. The monster before her cannot possibly be the man who had taken care of her. It could not possibly be the man that she had come to know. Still it explained some things though. It explained his one meal a day, why he never needed to leave her.
“I’m sorry I had to deceive you Shayla. It was not my choice to do so.” He said easily from behind the ivory fangs. She pressed herself into the wall and looked around for a way out of the room.
‘Blood suckers; I’ve been living with a group of blood suckers for the past two weeks. Oh, dear God, save my soul.’ She thought and anger flashed across his face. She cursed herself, remembering how he always seemed to know exactly what she needed. Of course, he could read her mind; it was a part of him.
“That’s all you see us as, blood suckers? Now, I’m a monster?” He asked, sounding angry and pained.
“That’s all I’ve ever known of vampires.” She said quietly, sliding back, down, into the bed.
“I have not bled you. I have done nothing to harm you, in any way.” He said, retracting his fangs. “My personality has not changed in the last twenty seconds simply because I have fangs. The past has not changed simply because I survive on blood.” His voice was getting more and more enraged. Still, it was not wild fire anger. It was ice so cold it burned. He regained his composure quickly, as she wrapped her arms around her knees. He stepped forward and she forced herself not to flinch. If he had wanted to injure her, he would have done it already. There was no reason he could not have done so before.
“I’m sorry. I did not mean to judge so quickly, but you have to admit it is a bit shocking. I mean, you’re a vampire. Vampires are typically portrayed as evil, demonic creatures out for themselves and no one else. That would make me dinner. That idea does not appeal to me.” She said hesitantly and he closed his eyes again.
“I expected as much. I was once human. As a race, if you do not understand it, or it frightens you, you only have two reactions. Either you make it a God or you exclude and destroy it. Hate should have been your first reaction. What I do not understand is why it was not.”
“Unlike the rest of my species, I don’t dislike people on sight, and I rarely hate. Unless, like Ichiro, your first impression is trying to taste me, of course.” She said, distracting herself from the fear in her chest. She heard a small noise of amusement and looked up at him. “You chuckled.”
“Impossible.”
“I distinctly heard you chuckle” His face dropped, a mask of disbelief. “You find me amusing, don’t you?” She asked and Rynst did not respond. She was correct, but he was not one to share such things. Her simple way of seeing the world and her ability to make light of something that would have traumatized normal people did intrigue him. In some small instances, he found her mildly amusing.
“You should get back to resting” Rynst said and she rolled her eyes, lying down obediently. He covered her gently, just as much so as before she had known what he was. While now she had a reason to fear him, she still did not. It simply meant to her that he was more capable of keeping her safe than she had thought. She knew he would not use his powers against her. She had already given him more than enough occasions to show her his power and scare her into submission, but he had not. She had found out because he had wanted to keep her safe.
“You can smile you know. It doesn’t hurt; it’s actually kind of fun. I’d like to see you smile.” Shayla said her voice gentle, soft and sleepy. Rynst looked at her and just watched. In his world, she would already be searching for a husband, not that it would have been a long search. She was outspoken, but that would have balanced out by her beauty and the sweetness of her. She was a caring person and as kind as they came, while not being an idiot, in this world. “You’ll look out for that thing, won’t you?”
“That thing?” Rynst asked raising a brow and she nodded.
“It’d be an insult to freaks to call him a freak and it’s an insult to vampires to call him that either.” She said, rolling onto her side. Her eyelids lowered, slowly as she struggled to finish her thought. “I have too much respect for animals to call him one of those either. So, he’s a thing.” She said, voice fading away into the wind. He silently wished her well in her dreams. He sat down by the bed on his feet and closed his eyes, meditating. He opened his mind and let himself feel the energies that wandered around them.
He felt the insects that hovered and crawled around the fortress. He felt everything that went on below their feet in preparation. Every time he opened his mind, it got harder and harder to tune out the darkness that was consuming this place. There was one other thing he was having trouble tuning out. He could not tune out the soft pulsing power that slept only feet from him. Soon, that power would wake. Nothing that had existed before this power would seem like anything more than card tricks when it did finally wake.
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Call of the Night ~~~ 3
