Our eyes remained fixated on one another for what felt like an eternity.

My hands remained clasped on my head as I looked up and he stared back at me. Firelight flickered around the walls, casting long dark shadows across the room, the eerie orange glow filling the space like a smoky cauldron. After a long moment, the vampire slowly stood up out of the couch. His movements were calculated as if he was moving in slow motion. He turned towards me and his mouth hung open loosely, his fangs just barely visible through his lips.

“Rise,” he said. I pushed myself up to my feet, dropping my hands, and stood facing him. I hadn’t even intentionally done so, but my body seemed to react to his voice as if on command.

“Don’t be afraid. Come forward,” he said to me in his smooth, enticing voice. I couldn’t make out his features in the shadows, but from the distance I could tell he was tall and strong, and yet his voice sounded young. I knew there was no way he was young, as vampires technically lived forever. If they weren’t killed, that is.

Without so much as a thought, I stepped one foot in front of the other and walked towards him slowly through the dark room. But within a few feet of him I stopped and looked up into his piercing light blue eyes. He looked down at me with an amused look on his face, but remained silent.

“Hello, Charlie.”

Looking at him, I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. The longing I felt towards this men, this vampire, was more than my body could take. My mind had finally quieted, and I no longer hurt from the soft chatter of his voice whispering to me, echoing in my mind. I hadn’t seen his face the night of the attack, but only heard his voice. The voice he spoke to me now filled my ears with familiarity.

He reached his hand out and touched my cheek, tracing my jawline with his cold fingertip. I stood there in place, my eyes fixated on his, unable to pull away.

“I…” Immediately shut my mouth as I didn’t know what to say. His eyes were like diamonds, as clichéd as that sounded, and I was lost in their depths. He took a step back from me and looked me up and down, and then smiled gently as he stood still, waiting.

We stood in silence for another moment, and the memory of that night came flashing back in my mind. An expression of fear and anger flashed momentarily across his face and I knew he felt the memory too. I was reminded of our mental connection, the link that was apart of me, and I was immediately pulled out the daze I’d fallen into the moment I came into this room. I shook my head and anger filled my body. I took a few steps back and glared angrily at him. “Stop with your games. That won’t work on me.” I looked behind me and noticed that the door to the room had closed, and I figured there was no way to escape apart from convincing him to let me go. I wouldn’t run as that would likely end in my death. I turned back to the vampire who stood before me and tried to make sense of the expression on his face. He looked confused and amused at the same time. Anger showed in his eyes but I could also sense a hint of kindness. He sat down on the couch and motioned for me to do the same.

I stood angrily for a moment, but then decided I might as well join him. I had a lot of questions and I was only to get answers if we actually had a conversation. As much as I hated the creature for doing what he did to me, I knew he was my only chance at escaping here alive. I stepped forward slowly towards the couch and sat down at the farthest end from him. I leaned against the curved arm of the couch and pulled my knees up close to my chest. He watched me curiously as I settled into the corner of the couch and got comfortable. I stared into the fire as I tried to think of what to say. What could I possibly ask the creature whom I shared an unfortunate link between our two very beings?

Finally I turned my attention back to him. “What’s your name?”

His face relaxed as he grinned at me. “Erik,” he said. His voice was smooth and icy at the same time, sending shivers down my spine.

“Eric with the C?” I asked.

“With a K,” he said, I mused.

I nodded. “Ah, how modern and hip of you. So you’re young?”

“No.”

I nodded awkwardly and diverted my gaze around the room, focusing on anything but him.

“What are you?” he finally asked. He squinted his eyes at me as if trying to peer into my very soul. I looked back at him and couldn’t help but feel strange and confused. I wanted nothing more than to run, but at the same time I knew so desperately my heart that I need to stay with him. The idea that I could no longer control my own thoughts and urges terrified me, and I needed to break the connection between the two of us. Although, part of me desperately wanted it to remain.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I raised my eyebrow at him and tried to give him my most courageous and charming look. If I wasn’t able to run, I might as well try and befriend the creature and maybe then he’ll let me go. It might be the alternative, anyway.

“You’re not changed,” he observed. He cocked his head to the side and looked at me curiously. “I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t changed from my bite, and yet I’ve never experienced the connection that I feel with you.” Fear and confusion flashed momentarily across his eyes before he narrowed his gaze again and looked at me expectantly.

I shrugged. “Oh, you know. That good ol’ Chicago blood, I guess.” I then groaned to myself at my stupid response. I was nervous. Why was I nervous? Oh yeah, maybe because I was in the basement of some strange vampire lord’s lair, and was likely about to be the victim of the next savage vampire ritualistic murder.

The strange thing was that the idea didn’t scare me. Perhaps, after being on the run for the past few months, I was ready to just give up. I was ready to sacrifice myself and the connection we had. I was ready to give myself to him completely if it meant I could finally find an end to all of this.

“What are you?” he repeated, his voice taking on an edge of anger this time.

I stared at him seriously and shrugged again. “Honestly, I don’t know. I assumed you had intentionally caused the pain-in-the-ass connection between the two of us, and let me go. How else could I have ended up at my apartment, alive?”

He watched me in silence for a while, and then finally adjusted his position on the sofa to face directly at me. “My memory of that night is black after I bit you. I’ve never experienced such intense pain or confusion. Not in my two-thousand years. You are the first human that I’ve ever bit that hasn’t changed, and the first creature that has ever managed to block me the way that you have.”

I laughed a nervous giggle and then quickly shut my mouth, pressing my lips together until they went numb. Again, I shrugged. I was never all that good at forced conversation, and after being cooped up in my tiny shithole apartment by myself with no friends to talk to for the last few months, I really couldn’t think of anything clever to say. “Really, I have no idea why I didn’t turn. My memory of that night is blank as well, and I just assumed it was you’re doing. I haven’t been able to shake the connection since it happened.”

Sadness spread across his face just then, and I raised my eyebrows in confusion. “Can you at least explain what is going on?” It was weird having a civil conversation with a vampire. A ‘master’ vampire, at that. But given the strange direction my life had taken these past few months, I guessed anything was possible.

“I wish I knew,” he said. “Are you human?”

I burst out in an intense fit of laughter. “Of course, I’m human,” I said. “Can’t you sense my heart beat?”

The vampire tilted his head and stared at me, like a predator stares at his prey. “You’re not a were-beast. I don’t sense any magic in you, but you must be something other than human to resist my bite. To resist my pull these past two months.”

I was curious suddenly, and a flood of questions came to me all at once. “How did you find me? How did this link spon between the two of us? How come I’ve been able to hear you, but you haven’t answered any of the questions that I sent out in my mind? Why didn’t you come find me earlier?”

Erik raised both hands in front of himself, motioning for me to be silent. He slowly lowered his hands back down and turned to stare into the fire. I sat and waited, my own heart beating so loudly in my chest that it was nearly all I could hear. The silence consumed me, and I began fidgeting with my fingers, picking at my nails anxiously.

“I do not have any answers, Miss Rose.”

As I stared at his perfectly chiseled, pale face, and the urge to run to him grew stronger. I craved his touch on me, and I longed to reach forward and touch him. My need for his body consumed me, and I knew desperately that I had to be with him.

But the memory of the night before briefly flashed in my mind. The heat of the shifter’s body against my own pulled me into the present. The vampire turned so fast to look at me that I didn’t see his face move. He was angry and the link between us flared to life again.

I jumped up off the couch and backed away from him.

“Stop that!” I shouted at him angrily. “Stop that magic. Stop pulling me towards you against my will. It’s not real, you know it’s not real. Just let me go!”

The vampire flew to his feat in response and looked at me in shock. He opened his mouth and closed it again, and shook his head slowly. He watched me curiously and waited for me to continue, but I simply stood there shaking in anger. He had complete control over me, and it terrified me. I wanted him so desperately, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t real. It was the result of his bite, and that was the only reason I felt drawn to him. It was a desperate, pleading need that I felt. And I knew it wasn’t mine.

I collapsed to my knees and started to cry. “Let me go. Please, let me go.”

The vampire stepped towards me and put his hand on my shoulder as I sat shaking on the floor. His gentle touch had a strange calming effect on me, despite my effort to hate him. His cool fingers felt good against my hot skin, and I leaned into his hand to feel the full effect of his icy cool skin.

I couldn’t control my shaking, despite my best effort to calm myself. I pressed my hands against the cold damp stone of the floor around me, and traced the edges of the rough stone with my fingertips. Tears streamed down my face, and I willed myself to stop crying. I had never been a crier, and I knew I was stronger than this. But I’d never felt such intense need for anything or anyone in my life, and I was having an all-consuming battle with myself over whether I wanted to stay or leave.

“We are forever bonded,” he said. “I cannot undo what has been done, for I do not understand it completely myself.”

I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself to stay warm. The warmth from the fire had subsided and all I could feel was the cool damp around me, consuming my body. I shook in silence for a moment and then whimpered quietly, “Kill me. Please, just kill me.”

I spent the last few months alone. I didn’t know myself anymore. The girl I once was no longer existed. I had nothing to live for, and I knew I couldn’t leave the city and keep my mind sane. If I wasn’t going to be myself anymore, I didn’t want to live. Simple as that. “Kill me.”

“Go,” he said finally.

I looked up at him, my vision blurry from the tears. “What?”

He then turned in anger and strode towards the back corner of the room where the shadows were blackest. I heard a door creak open that I hadn’t noticed before, and he walked through it. “Go,” he shouted again through darkness.

The door slammed shut with a loud bang that echoed through the room, and I sat frozen on the floor near the fire by myself. I finally pushed myself up and looked around, noticing the door in the far wall that I had come through, now opened. I turned and began slowly walking towards my freedom. The chatter in my mind had stopped, and I couldn’t feel the link anymore.

Could it really have been that easy? A part of me knew there was no way I could be let off the hook that easily, but for now, I had my freedom. I quickened my pace and ran out of the room and into the darkness.