She took me into her bedroom. Spartan, like my own, the large black and burgundy covered bed dominating the room. She sat down on the bed, her hand still engulfing mine, gently pulling me down to sit beside her. She'd left the door open, and in the near silence of the house, we could hear Cid and our Master speaking quietly in the living room.
"You saved me," I whispered to her, as I sat on the bed, relaxing the grip I had on the blanket wrapped tightly around my small frame. "At the sale, if you hadn't reached for me our Master wouldn't have noticed me." I looked at her, meeting her eyes bravely, as I worked out the events of the sale. I was slow in realizing the debt I owed her.
She shook her head. "No, I didn't save you." She told me with a quiet laugh. "You got his attention all on your own, when you screamed in that vampire's face...It was like you put all of you pain and hate into that death-like scream, and then you lay limp as if you had died. Our Master stopped mid-stoke, he shrank inside me, and he watched you. He placed the collar around my neck, and then he all-but ran to the sale room. He must have paid a lot for the two of us, because he talked with some other vampire for a long time. And finally, he handed over his entire bag of silver coins. By the time he got everything worked out, the candle was almost burnt out."
I lowered my gaze and impulsively turned, letting the blanket fall into a pool of crimson around me, and hugged her. "If you hadn't reached for me, I wouldn't have screamed."
Her arms came around me, and she nuzzled my check affectionately. I hadn't intended for her to return the hug. My brain exploded in a typhoon of scenarios of how this girl would hurt me, I clenched my eyes and I fought not to pull away.
I could recall several times when another female slave had cornered me, and taken their aggressions out on me. Some of those scars were better defined on my damaged skin than any given by my vampire Masters. My sides and stomach bore three-sets of anger driven fingernail valleys, and my upper thighs and mound of Venus were covered in jagged circular teeth-made craters where other female slaves had sought to inflict their pains on someone else. I feared that this girl would leave scars much deeper than any before her.
Finally, she released me, her eyes wide with concern. I must have grown rigid in her embrace. I shook my head, ignoring the girl's mute distress. Panic had started to churn in my gut; prelude, in the past, of torment and destruction. I turned away from her and curled into the fetal position, battling to hold back the sobs threatening in my throat.
Silently, I chastised myself for my inability to remain passive. 'What's happening to you?' The part of myself that had been murdered and resurrected hundreds of times screamed silently in my head. 'You've grown so weak in a matter of days. Toughen up, or your new household will tear you apart.'
"I just want to take the pain away, even if it's only for a few minutes." She whispered, her voice edged with the same tears as the ones filling her eyes, as she curled around my backside. Her arms came around me, as she refused to let me face my demons alone tonight.
As she whispered, I realized that her lips did not move as she pressed them against the back of my neck. She spoke telepathically, into my mind. My senses sprang to life, as I felt her body pressed firmly against mine. She was cold, the length of my life tale had cooled the heat that had radiated from her. 'Vampire,' the voice in my mind whispered.
I pushed the voice away. Surrendering to the kisses she planted on my shoulders. But acceptance didn't stop the sobs, and I became victim to their iniquitous assault. I was broken more completely by the comparative perfection of this household, than by the torture of five years in Hell.
The thick wall I'd begun building the first night as I watched Hitomi taken by a creature of nightmares crumbled to dust as I cried clutched tightly in the arms of the golden haired angel. She kissed my back and shoulders, moving to my neck and ears. Pacifying me with the soft meaningless words she whispered, as she gently rolled me over.
I looked into the forest of her eyes, seeing the tiny differences that confirmed she was not the human slave I'd mistaken her as. Fresh tears overflowed my eyes fearing she would manifest into that nightmare monster from my past cackling in triumph.
"Vampire," I whispered, shattered, but unable to summon the strength to hide it. I let my eyes fall closed turning my head away, baring for her more than just the vein. 'What a cruel game,' I thought to myself. 'Befriend you, love you...then their kisses cut so much deeper.' The thoughts continued as I waited for her to freeze my heart.
She never leaned down to claim my throat as her prize. "No." She said quietly, and turned my face back to hers with gentle force. "I will never take your blood." Her lips brushed lightly across mine, seeming to pull the tension from me. "I am not the creature you think I am." Again the feather-light touch of her lips, this time taking the last of the fight from me. "Though I am not so different from them. But I am as much a slave as you."
I opened my eyes, shaking my head slowly. "I don't understand..." She leaned down to touch my lips again, my eyes fell closed once more, as I fell into the tranquility her kisses brought.
My consciousness fluttered, as her hands moved over my broken body, never truly touching but soothing away the tiny pains I had learned to ignore. Her mouth worked tenderly against mine, coaxing me to open for her.
When I opened my mouth to her, and our tongues touched I cried out in relief that was near rapture. There were no tiny fangs to pierce my tongue, only human teeth and a soft tongue to dance with mine within the warm confines of our mouths.
Her hands continued to move over me, brushing my throat, my shoulders, then down across my nipples. In their wake, electric tingles remained. The puckered and scarred flesh grew warm as the tingling sensations faded. Every time her fingertips touched warm, once deadened flesh, intense bolts of pleasure shot directly to my core.
Somehow, she had brought feeling back to the heavily scarred flesh of my shoulders. Her hands seemed to move randomly, staying mostly over my shoulders, but occasionally they strayed to my throat, or down over my breasts. I whimpered against her mouth, moaning, as I never had, my hips pumping the air gently.
She broke away from my lips. "Keep your eyes closed." She whispered as she tenderly kissed my eyelids. "Focus on the pleasure. I'll take away the pain." She kissed down the side of my face, her mouth warming with the slight friction from our kisses.