*Author's Note: This story was co-written with a very close friend of mine. Without his creative mind and knowledge about this particular subject, I wouldn't be able to share it. Thanks Chris!! {muah}
Cassandra, better known as Cass to her friends, kept to herself as much as possible when spending time on her own ... she was much too busy as an editor for a popular women's magazine and the only time she really had to herself was in the evenings. Tonight was no different ... she just wanted to be alone in her uptown warehouse apartment. She had spent an extravagant amount of money turning the abandoned upper floor warehouse into a cozy apartment that reeked of both style and the Old West, something that she was fascinated with even in the middle of New York City. It was her getaway and she needed one desperately.
Taking her latest book written by one of her favorite authors, Nicholas Evans, she glanced down at the cover of her hardback edition of his latest release "The Divide". She moved across the great bearskin rug that adorned the hardwood floors of her open living area, glancing up at the calming "thump thump" of her wooden and metal ceiling fan that circulated the air. Curling up on a worn-out beaten leather chair and ottoman where her bare toes flexed some as her ankles crossed, she settled before the roar of the fire beneath the old log that had been transformed into a mantel and curled up to read. Intent on relaxing this chilly night in the city, she could hear the distant rumble of thunder in the background.
The vampire was alone; as usual. He licked a scratch on the back of his hand almost like a cat and reached up to straighten his hair. He was a mess, actually. He had run across the wrong crowd and they'd managed to beat the crap out of him then left when human police started to show up. Leragie had managed to hide away and sneak out of sight until he made it to the maze of alleyways to be alone. It seemed pretty much normal for him. His own kind didn't like him; he was "soft" and too "gentle" for their tastes and he couldn't be around humans for long. He hadn't fed off a human in ages and he didn't plan to start anytime soon. The thought made him recoil.
His sharp eyes caught the motion of a skittering rat across the dank alleyway and he watched it dart beneath a trash bin. He was hungry... but he was too tired to try and chase something so small. They'd taken a lot out of him and all he'd been doing was keeping to himself. He had pondered leaving this city... but why? He'd only be shunned in other places too. Something was wrong with him; something had been wrong for years and years. He had never been able to figure out quite what. He just couldn't be "evil" like his kind wanted or expected him to be and so, he regularly got the crap beaten out of him when he ran across a gang of them»
Reaching up to wipe blood away from a cut on his lip, he licked it off his hand and further continued to feel over his face. It hurt. He'd been hit several times and he was just a ragged mess. His coat was torn where they'd tried to take it from him and there was a slash across his chest and belly. It hadn't seemed they were intent on killing him, otherwise they would've staked him and been done with it. No ... he was a toy; they were playing with him as they always seemed to. He remembered one saying they should keep him. Raj had managed to get away, even if the fight had been six to one. Granted, he wasn't the strongest thing ever, but he wasn't weak either. Those kinds of odds just weren't fair.
Looking up at the sky, he heard thunder rumble overhead. Rain ... just what he needed. Raj rolled his eyes and tucked his hands into the pockets of his worn-out trench coat and continued on his walk down the alley.
Cass lost herself in the plot of the book ... what she wouldn't give for a little excitement in her life outside of the mundane everyday activities that kept her somewhat sane. Between the demands of work and the constant ringing of her phone and endless conference calls that went with her job, the only real thing she had lost herself in was the regimen of her work-out at a local gym. She had taken up kick-boxing as a stress reliever and between that and her daily runs, she had managed to keep in excellent shape.
Closing her book for a moment, the inside cover marking her place, Cass set the book upon the rustic scratched end table next to where she was sitting and fingered the authentic steer-hide lamp shape before rising upwards to toss another birch wood log onto the fire. She was rewarded by the crackling and popping of the wood before drifting over to one of the many high arched windows that looked out onto the street. She had a beautiful view of downtown that seemed like the perfect picture for a postcard but still far enough to feel like she wasn't right in the middle of the busy hub-bub of the city. She could even see her office building looming tall in the distance; one of the larger buildings now that the twin towers were gone but still no where in height the way the towers had been.
Raj's eyes naturally blinked as he came onto a main street, the fake light streaming over him and his vision adjusted. His home was on the other side of the city. Why he had wandered this far, he had no idea. The street was relatively dark ... quiet. It was a residential area; quite different from the hustle and bustle of the inner city. A light toward the top of one of the buildings caught his eye and he looked upward. Somebody was up late. Glancing at the watch on his left wrist he couldn't help but wonder why he even wore one of those things; perhaps to keep in touch with what little was left of his humanity. Or maybe just to annoy himself to see time go by but not a day passing for him. He probably would never know.
One twenty-seven a.m.; somebody was up definitely up late. He let his mind wander as to why. Maybe they couldn't sleep, or they were up for a midnight snack. Or maybe they had somebody over ... any number of scenarios were created in his mind, each successive one more and more in-depth than the last. He just stood there, flooded in the street light, sort of mesmerized by his own thoughts as he just watched the light in the windows. When a form appeared as a silhouette, all his thoughts came to a halt. Now he knew the answer ... or at least part of it.
As she stood there a moment, Cassandra's gaze shifted until she saw a lone figure standing in the flickering light of the street light. Her eyebrows furrowed momentarily as their gazes locked. There was something about him ... unnerving the way that he just stood there looking up at her but at the same time, it didn't bother her much. She was used to being "gawked" at. That was the best way to describe it. But even in the distance, she could see that he looked pretty rough ... like something had happened but there was an aura surrounding him; something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She felt something within her reach out to him even across the distance before she turned away from the window.
Stepping back towards the fire, she picked up the poker to push at the burning embers and logs that were aflame with bright dancing lights that licked along the dry fuel like a hungered predator along its prey. Leaving the fire to burn and heat the open room, she moved towards the metal staircase that moved up to her bedroom in the open loft. A moon roof was situated above her bed that allowed the night sky to filter in. Shrugging off her jeans and sweater, she pulled on a long fitted spaghetti strap nightgown that clung to her curves and tickled around her muscled calves. Running a brush through her long soft tresses, she considered sleeping in front of the fire on the bearskin rug as the rain started to patter against her moon roof and the windows
Raj's eyes dropped to the pavement when the woman stepped away from the window. He shouldn't be here he kept thinking to himself; especially with so many humans around. He could only imagine what he looked like, even if he was numb to most of the pain. He reached up to wipe blood from his lips again irritatingly and wiped it onto his trench coat. Curse the ability to bleed. It was too ... human. With his head relatively low, he turned to walk down the street toward home where he could just hide and brood awhile. He muttered beneath his breath as the rain started to come down and plop on his head. Glaring up at the sky as if to curse it, he growled when a raindrop caught him square in the eye and he reached up to rub it.
Just then he felt something ... just one. He immediately cursed himself for staying in the open and turned slowly toward the source. Just one; one he knew from long ago. A lone man stood leaning against the inner doorframe of an apartment complex, grinning evilly. "Poor Lerajie ... get caught out in the rain? And my, what happened to you?" He stood up and took a step toward Raj, taking the time to look him up and down slowly, appraising each scrape and cut and tsk'ed softly as if disappointed. "Lerajie, won't you ever learn? Those rats sure can give you hell. What'd he do? Drag you through a grinder?" he hissed in a wicked tease.
Raj backed away when the other advanced on him, glaring at him intently. The other just grinned almost maniacally and reached out to caress a cut across Raj's brow. Hissing, Raj drew back with a sneer. "Go away Nisus."
