My Precious Nightmare

27: A Closet

For the first time, Sky really appreciated just how huge Morianton's mansion was. By the time she found a broom closet appropriate for privacy, she had dashed up so many staircases and halls that her emotional turmoil was thoroughly spent.

Even so, she craved the solitude and privacy that came once she shut the door tightly. By the time anyone bothered to look for her here, if they ever did, she would be done and able to continue on with life like a sane human being.

'She likes him,' she thought blithely. When it came down to it, Lea was just like every other female protagonist in a badly written vampire novel: head over heels. For all Sky knew, she had a secret biting fetish and everything. Yeah the guy did have sort of a nice face, if you liked the predatorial, Middle-Eastern oil tycoon look.

But even as Sky told herself that she knew, deep down, that the truth was Lea was just too soft. She was too easy to manipulate. Even if the vamp had been the ugliest person in the world, if they had given her some proof, made up or otherwise, that her presence was somehow saving them or others, Lea would throw herself away just like that. It was a trait Sky had come to hate about her. Lea's lack of comprehension of just how much she meant to others in the end hurt the very ones she tried so hard for.

She didn't know how long she had been hiding when the closet door clacked open, flooding Sky's safe, dark space with light.

The towering form of a vampire filled the doorway.

"What are you doing in here?" asked Aster Morianton in his usual rude, no nonsense way.

Sky swallowed, her attention taken up by the blood-soaked bandages about his chest. Her throat clicked as she swallowed again.

It only took a few seconds or so for Morianton to realize that she wasn't going to talk. He sighed and crouched down to the balls of his bare feet.

"Did your brains finally turn on and tell you were in a house of monsters?"

Sky blinked hard towards his dark blue eyes and glared.

"I'm not in the mood for your insults, money bags. Go away."

"It's my closet."

"Then back off and I'll go somewhere else."

"It's my house."

"Like I'd want to stay here a second longer anyways."

"Then what's keeping you? It's certainly not me."

Her furious glare wilted and she raised a hand to cover the wrinkling of her chin. Her throat started to hurt again.

And Aster Morianton just wouldn't look away. In fact, the steadiness of his gaze on her was getting rather unnerving.

"It's your midget friend, isn't it?" filled in Morianton with a snort. "Doesn't want to leave her bloodsucker? That's rich."

"Shut up!" her voice cracked.

"Why didn't you just sling her over your shoulder? You're twice her size, and if you're friends you'll get over it, right? Bitches before bros and all that schmuck?"

Sky had to hide her face now. "Shut up! It's none of your business."

"It's in my house—"

"Screw your house! Just go poof into dust already!"

It was obvious now that she was crying. Her voice had warbled all over the place and she was try into stem the flow of snot into her jeans.

By some force of God, Morianton actually complied and went quiet. So quiet, in fact, that Sky dared to believe he had wandered off in his slinky vampire way. They were sneaky-freak hunters of the night, after all. Silent go and silent come, catch the squirrel, eat the roadrunner.