*These first few chapters don't have much sex if any at all. There will be much to come so please rate and comment. Thank you.*
*Chapter 1*
He could smell his dinner across the parking lot. He had waited all night for this one and his hunger was growing more irritable with each passing moment. If he had a pulse, it would have raced when he saw the figure move from the doorway and exit the building. The slender female stood smelling of lilacs and Kael moved to attack. Suddenly, he froze mid step and a look of horror stole his face's normal handsome features away.
The sudden change left him baffled. The hairs on his neck stood at attention when a new scent filled his head. He took a deep breath and let the scent take over: human, female, and injured. Dried blood, bruises, broken bones and fear filled his head and his already cold heart felt like ice in his chest. There had never been a moment in his four hundred years that he had missed the south's well known heat... until now.
Kael followed the scent to see what could cause such disruption in his feeding. He jumped down from the roof of the building and landed behind the shopping center he frequented for hunting. Walking slowly in his usually determined manner, he rounded a corner and heard a door slam then a car speed off. Not giving the car another thought, Kael went to continue his hunting until a coughing sound coming from where the car had just been caught him off guard.
Cautiously, he walked towards the lump on the ground he hadn't noticed before. He inched towards the 'lump' that he now realized was the cause of the scent that had filled his head. He lifted the tattered blood stained sheet from the girl and gasped at what he saw. In all of his four hundred and some odd years, he'd never seen anything like what he did now.
He took up the girl's small hand in his right and braced himself. A flash, then a feeling of drowning in a whirlpool left Kael standing in a dark room. He felt his hands chained above his head while his feet dangled in the air mere inches above the ground. He looked at his surroundings as images became clearer to him. He hung there in horror as he saw whips, knives of different sorts, chains, and several sexual related items on a table not far from him. It was then that he felt searing pain in places all over his body. He felt something cool running down his face, as well as a few other places, running down his face and running into his mouth. He instantly knew that it was blood, his blood.
He used all of his strength to bring himself back to squatting beside the frail girl, dropping her hand at her side. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed the pair and when there was no one he turned to the girl and lifted her to his chest tenderly. He could tell that she wouldn't make it much longer without help. Her captors knew what they were doing and they nearly succeeded in killing her.
*Chapter 2*
His house was secluded; it was way off the highway and in the woods to where it couldn't be seen. It was a good size, too big for just him but he had hopes of an addition or two in the future. The second floor was floor to ceiling glass walls making the house seem more contemporary than he had liked at first. He climbed the stairs to his front door and sprinted into the house. He ran up the staircase leading to the bedrooms and master bathroom.
He placed the fragile girl on his bed only then taking the time to examine her wounds. He could tell that her left arm was broken and that the cuts on her body needed to be attended to immediately. He ripped off the remaining 'clothing' the girl was wearing exposing the rest of her beaten body. Kael winced when he saw the bruises that covered her, knowing that it would be a long recovery if she even made it through the night.
***
He steered clear of her mind for fear of being sent back to that terrible place she had been. He used his magic to keep her free from pain and from awakening before her body was ready. He waited for the water to run warm before he carried her to the bathroom and placed her in the tub. He gently washed the dried blood from her body then stripped his own clothes off before climbing in with the girl. With better access, he rid the girl's hair of the filth she had been living in with her captors.
With her body and hair clean, he lifted the girl and dried her off before returning her to his bed. He set her arm and used a splint to help it heal correctly, feeling thankful for studying medicine even with it so long ago. He nursed her wounds with a special medicine he had learned from a medicine man that would seal her wounds and hopefully prevent scarring. Kael sat beside his bed watching her sleep, trying to decide whether or not it was safe to leave her. Fearing of her waking alone, but on the brink of starvation he decided to feed off of his emergency stash.
After sleeping for three days under Kael's influence, her cuts were healed and merely a pink line remained to mark their territory. Kael prepared his home by stocking the cabinets with real food, hiding his dwindling blood supply, and placing fresh linens throughout the house. He knew she would be waking soon and had to prepare her for the shock she was about to receive. He had to tell her, there was no way around it.
