It was barely an hour after that tense and emotional conversation between Claire and Eliot, when Nicolas eventually made his way back upstairs. He had finished taking his evening meal from one of Hollister’s plethora of pretty servant girls and was intending to return to his chambers once more, assuming Claire would be occupied with her new mortal companion again this night.

But as he reached the landing at the top of the stairs, Nicolas’ dark eyes caught sight of the glass balcony doors at the other end of the hall. Outside, light snow flurries had started to fall as it was now nearing February in London there that night. But Nicolas was used to London weather by now. What caught his attention was that that new mortal of Claire’s was outside on that balcony leaning upon one of the thick stone columns, and staring out into the nighttime sky. And his current upset would be obvious to even those who could not so easily sense his emotions.

Nicolas took a long moment to decide if he should go and speak with the young man again, considering their last rather strange conversation. But as it was now night, and he was alone rather than with Claire, or even Aidan, it was even more clear that something was amiss.

Eliot startled slightly as Nicolas pushed open the balcony doors behind him, but he tried to at least appear to remain calm, as he continued leaning against that pillar. Though, he was shivering a bit and had his arms wrapped about himself in an effort to retain a bit of his own body heat rather than just coming back into the warmth of the castle just yet.

“It is rather cold out here, isn’t it?” Nicolas managed some greeting, despite how little these two had ever really interacted, despite their common homeland.

“Is that a statement or a question?” Eliot returned in a matching, though more polished accent. Though he spoke under the breath that was leaving his lips in a cloud with each word, while no such thing appeared to be leaving Nicolas’ own body as he stood there in the same cold air that night.

“You know” Nicolas stated with a look down, never having been one for subtlety or small talk thanks to his long past of barely interacting with anyone at all for much of his life.

“That it’s cold? Yes, I gathered that much” Eliot shook his head, still speaking with a lack of much volume at all behind his words.

“I mean, you know... what we are” Nicolas corrected quietly as an almost tangible wave of tension passed over Eliot then.

“So you can read minds?” Eliot’s words broke as they left his lips and he shook his head again, still unable to look back at Nicolas, despite the fear he had of ever taking his eyes off of any of them at all now.

“Which is why I know that's the reason you’re out here in the cold instead of inside with us” Nicolas stated in the same sad tone as he looked back at where Eliot still was unable to look directly at him.

“Really?” Eliot scoffed to try to cover his fears again, “that’s quite handy. I’d love to hear more about what my own thoughts actually are. There’s been a bit too many of them lately for me to even try to decipher them myself” he retorted with a sad kind of sarcasm to try and guard those actual feelings he was having right then.

“You’re afraid that any one of us could kill you at any moment, now” Nicolas stated, again his tone more sad than accusatory.

Eliot’s breath caught for more than a moment, as he finally couldn’t help turning his eyes back to the other beautiful young man, however briefly. He swallowed another lump in his throat before trying to hide behind that dark wit again, “those words are somehow not any more comforting when their actually outside my own head.”

“Isn’t that true when the people all around you are humans too though?” Nicolas stated quietly.

“Pardon?” Eliot replied, casting another quick glance back at Nicolas.

“You don’t have to be one of us to kill, or even hurt another person. Humans do that to each other every day” Nicolas stated, his own voice breaking then as his eyes turned downwards.

Eliot swallowed another lump in his throat as he finally let his eyes stay on Nicolas for a longer moment, taking in his words, as they were completely true. And they appeared to be especially true for Nicolas, as slight drops of red seemed to be struggling to keep from trickling from those pretty brown eyes of his as he spoke them.

“I’m guessing you speak from experience?” Eliot’s curiosity, and even possibly sympathy for this ‘monster’ before him managed to somehow inch past his own fears right then.

Nicolas needed another moment to compose himself and try once more to push away the memories that would never really leave his head, ever. He then made himself look back up at last, “I assume you’ve heard of the Marquis de Sade?” he asked, almost choking as he made himself speak Donatien’s name aloud once more.

Eliot scoffed again, “one of our country’s most famous, or rather infamous citizens?” he shook his head, “the other being my own great uncle, of course. Yes, I’ve heard of him.”

“Well, I actually knew him” Nicolas stated, though his words were barely above a whisper.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Eliot narrowed his eyes, “didn’t he die nearly fifty years ago, though?”

“And I died over forty years ago” Nicolas replied softly.

Eliot needed a moment with that confession too as he took another breath, “so, you knew him?”

“And he was a bigger monster than any...” he corrected himself, “I’ve met plenty of my kind since becoming like them, and only one of them ever compared to the monstrous things Donatien did. And he was supposedly human. But he’s the one I still had nightmares about, for years. The only thing that ever made me feel safe again was Claire, the woman who’s supposedly not human” he stated pointedly.

“Claire helped you?′ Eliot replied, forcing down his own emotions then.

“Claire is very good at fixing broken things” Nicolas allowed a smile, “it’s her way of trying to fix herself, I think” he smiled again, as he repeated almost the same exact words that Claire herself had said to Eliot weeks earlier.

Eliot looked down with another shaky breath, “it is getting rather cold out here. I think I’ll go back inside, after all” he whispered. Nicolas simply offered a sad smile as he nodded to Eliot and moved back through the patio doors and into the warmth inside once again.

It was several moments later before Eliot made his return to Claire’s room at last. He looked a bit breathless as he stepped inside and leaned back upon the door to close it behind him. Claire looked up to greet him expectantly, her fear clear on her face. She was sure he was about to tell her that there was no way he could deal with what he now knew about her and that their brief time together was now at a decisive end.

He took a deep, shaky breath and forced his gaze to meet hers before he made his feet carry him across the room to where she was tensely sitting at the end of the sofa closest the door. He then surprised her more than a little when he knelt in front of her, making their heights almost equal from where she was seated. He then reached up to place his hands over the cool pale skin of her cheeks, trying not to startle again at the feel of that coolness, now that he did truly know the reasons behind it.

“I don’t know how much longer I’ll have the courage to do this, so...” and with that, he covered her lips with his mouth once more, as she collapsed into that kiss with an audible sound of relief once their lips touched again.

Throughout the course of that kiss, Eliot somehow found himself on the sofa with Claire, their mouths still moving against one another. Her back now resting upon the thickly upholstered arm of the sofa, her legs stretched across the cushions. Eliot was now on his knees above her, one resting on each side of her tiny frame as those long kisses continued.

Her own desire and relief combined through that sustained connection between their lips to cause her to reach up to the buttons of his shirt. His breath faltered only slightly against her mouth as he felt her undoing that first button. Her eyes then opened to meet his, waiting for some silent permission to continue.

He allowed a small smile, wary as it was, before he continued the kiss once more, giving her that unspoken permission as he did. Moments later, her fingers had reached the last button as his mouth moved against hers still. Then she slowly moved to begin sliding his shirt down his arms as he broke off the kiss only as long as was necessary to help her free him from that shirt.

At the sight of his newly exposed flesh, Claire’s hands came up to gently run her fingers over those sparse black hairs that dotted his chest, reveling in the heat of his skin next to the coolness of hers. She then moved her own kisses to his neck as she continued those soft caresses.

As her lips moved to his neck, she could feel the sudden tension that took up residence in his body, though he remained still, not allowing himself to pull away from her. “Should I stop?” she whispered against his neck.

“Depends on what you actually plan to do, I suppose” he whispered hoarsely.

Claire allowed a small, sad smile as she turned and rested her cheek against his neck instead then. “I wasn’t planning to do that” she assured, “but do you remember the dream that wasn’t a dream?” she asked softly, “was any part of that painful?”

Eliot forced his mind back to the morning after that extremely lucid dream that wasn’t a dream after all. And then he remembered the state that he had found his clothing in that morning and swallowed hard. “It seems that I remember it being the complete opposite, actually” he made himself admit, then looked down at her with a blush, “I think I actually came in that... dream that wasn’t a dream” he confessed.

Claire couldn’t help another small laugh as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and looked up at him again, “that does tend to happen, especially the first time that you... feel that.”

“So, being bitten feels like an orgasm?” he shook his head, “makes you actually have one, even” he allowed his own laugh of disbelief, “I never heard that part of the vampire myth before.”

“We try to keep that one to ourselves. Otherwise we’d be extremely popular with all the humans around us. Would make it hard to keep us all just a myth, wouldn’t it?”

He shook his head with another smile as he finally moved back from her, though he was looking back at her with less fear and more intrigue, or even perhaps, admiration? “What else isn’t true... about you?”

Claire let out a slight scoff, not having any clue where to begin with that answer. She then dropped her feet back to the floor, allowing them to both sit back upon the sofa next to each other now. “Considering I don’t know what all you’ve even heard? There are so many stories out there. Probably because there are so many different kinds of Kindred, honestly.”

“Kindred?” he asked, brushing a curl from his face as he turned slightly in his seat to face her.

“That’s what we call ourselves” she replied quietly, looking back up at him with almost shyness about being asked outright about her own existence, when she had become so used to only being surrounded by those who already knew all about her kind already.

“You’re so very different than anything I’ve ever heard.”

“Reality usually is pretty different than fiction, isn’t it? The fact that I exist at all is proof of that” she added with another small smile. “But there are monsters among us. Just like there are among humans. And those are probably the only stories the humans ever hear. So as much as I don’t want you to be afraid of me and my, family of sorts, you have to remember that too.”

“I haven’t really seen anything monstrous about the three or four of you I’ve spoken with so far” he smiled.

“We do tend to try and stay pretty separate from the monsters. We don’t want them around any more than you do” she smiled again.

“So, I’m to believe that you’re just like us then, is that what you are saying?”

“If we were just like you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now at all, would we? But one thing to think about, when you try to figure out what we’re really like, so to speak; it’s that all of us were born human and lived our lives... human. And now we’re just... just something... different. Though that doesn’t stop some of us from still feeling very human, inside... even after all this time.”