"You've made quite the mess, haven't you?"

That was an understatement. All twenty-two of my soldiers were gathered outside what remained of the silver-headed vampire's cell, their weapons drawn as they eyed the deceptively frail-looking woman with wary suspicion. Some of the local militia had even joined us in collectively staring at the girl inside, with most of the garrison's unoccupied troops now piling into the crowded corridor connecting her cell to the rest of the compound.

The room had once been a standard prison cell, cut off from the hallway by a wall made up of iron bars one and a half inches thick, with a wooden latrine and stiff mattress for the prisoner's benefit. Those were gone now, replaced by shredded wood, sawdust, and some beat-up straw littering the space in her immediate vicinity, the thick iron bars now bent and snapped in every which way after she was done with them. There were deep gouges in the walls, wide and narrow grooves carved into them by the woman glaring daggers at me from inside her cell.

The guards assigned to her when she awoke were pretty quick on the uptake, having called for help as soon as she started tearing the place up. I flashed them a smile as I stepped forward, my heart hammering away in my chest as I pretended not to care much at all

She responded to this by tensing up even further, curling her fingers up as she prepared to tear my throat out. I raised my hands up in front of me, palms out in an attempt to put her at ease.

"Easy there, I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're not capable of that," she stated, her anger colouring her voice just as it did her pale face with red. "Where am I? Who are you people?"

"Your name is Lenora, yes?" I replied with another question, hoping to wrest control of the conversation away from her. "We're not here to hurt you, but you did kill quite a few people before we brought you in, so I hope you'll understand why we're keeping you in a cell."

"I didn't kill anyone that didn't deserve it!" she snapped, a faint crack seeping into her voice as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. "Every bastard in this town deserves as much, but I only killed the people that actually hurt me! Is that so terrible to you?"

I looked over her with a tinge of sympathy. Going off of the background our friends in the militia had provided us in the brief, she probably wasn't lying. According to them, the woman had once been in the employ of a local circus as a monstrous curio of sorts, playing into her "heretical" appearance, probably suffering abuse at the hands of employers that both feared and wished to milk her before she turned. The parts I found appealing wouldn't go down so well with the general populace, either — their idea of heresy being anyone who was different enough from the norm — exactly what this red-eyed, silver-haired young woman happened to be. That, and their brand of vampire was supposed to be a seductress of some sort, her beauty only adding to that impression and making things worse than they already were.

I could understand if she wanted to get revenge on more than just a few people.

"No, it's not," I agreed, my voice sympathetic as my expression hardened, putting on an appropriately serious face after deciding to adopt a more serious tone. "While I won't argue the reasons behind your crimes, they're still just that — crimes. The law asks that you be hanged for the murders of your former employers, but not to worry — I don't plan on letting that happen."

I let that sink in for a moment, the vampire relaxing imperceptibly at my words as the militiamen behind me let out a collective silent gasp. Before any of them could speak up about it, though, my aide forestalled them with a hand and a glare that could force even generals to stand down in fear.

"You're... not going to kill me?"

"Gods, no!" I exclaimed, shaking my head vigorously as I flashed her a weak but reassuring smile. "If anything, I want you to work with us! You've already proven yourself more reasonable than any other manifestations we've encountered thus far, at least insofar as you're not actively trying to kill us all, but I can't just let you go. So we compromise, yes?"

Lenora continued to glare at me, her lips pursed in contemplation at my haphazard offer. Truth be told, I still didn't really know how we'd make use of her. I resolved to send word back to Kaarfort Abbey, where my superiors and brother-commanders would make better decisions on this than I could. After a moment, she nodded once, visibly relieved but still eyeing me suspiciously.

"What do you mean by 'work?'"

"We'll... talk about that later. For now, could you step in here?" I asked, gesturing at an undamaged cell across from her. This earned me another hostile glare, and it took all I had not to back down from her withering gaze.

"And maybe don't wreck the place again?" I added, grabbing Agnes by the shoulders, still trailing behind me. She let out a faint "eep!" when I pushed her forward a little to face the vampire girl before us, patting her a few times on the back for not-so-subtle encouragement. "This here's Agnes, and she'll be taking care of you while we hash things out with the locals. If there's anything you need or want answered — just let her know, alright?"

Lenora went silent for a few tense moments, the gears in her head turning as she eyed each of my men with suspicion, before resting her gaze back on my handsome self. After coming to a decision, she nodded.

"Fine."

***

Two young women were sitting in an old, dusty holding cell attached to my men's quarters, with two buckets and a lit lantern in arms' reach. One was filled with water, clear but half-empty, while the other was filled with soapier, bubbly water. The room smelled of a strange mix of caked-up dust and fragrant soap, neither scent overpowering the other in an odd deadlock of smells I found strangely wholesome when paired with the sight before me.

Lenora had her head rested on Agnes' crossed legs, the young soldier humming a gentle tune as she massaged the vampire's scalp with handfuls of soapy water each time. She was noticeably cleaner by this point, her damp, pearl-white skin almost glistening in the dim lantern's light. Her piercing red eyes were firmly closed in almost the same peaceful expression she had while unconscious, and I noticed a fresh set of clothes — a tunic and a pair of stockings — stacked atop the bed next to the set of once-fancy tattered clothing the vampire had on when we first met.

Ah, that reminded me — she was naked.

I turned away for a moment, a slight wince accompanying my shifting gaze as I tried to find a spot that didn't include the sight of the naked vampire. I struggled to wipe the image of her burning itself onto my retinas, giving up on the endeavour in favour of secretly admiring the picture now firmly stuck in my mind. I stepped back through the threshold, deciding to lean on the wall next to the door from outside the room.

"Busy?" I asked, my intent to distract myself through idle chatter blindingly obvious. Neither woman spoke, but Agnes decided to let out a soft but disapproving "hm," in response. After that, a few moments passed without much fanfare until Lenora spoke up, the hostility in her voice from earlier replaced by a deadpan, flat tone.

"You're Oliver?"

"Hm," I grunted in the affirmative.

"A knight, yes?"

"Yes, Brother-Knight of the Order of Faiths, to be exact."

As the idle chatter came to an end, the faint sloshing sounds of water-infused hair being massaged stopped, which after a moment was replaced by the sound of rustling clothes telling me they'd finished their little hair-washing woman-bonding session. I peeked hesitantly at them from the edges of the door, finding that Lenora was now very much dressed as her companion used a dry cloth to pat her head dry, and boy — was she a sight to see.

The part of my mind I'd given the task of remembering how much I liked the tunic-and-stockings combination flared up like a bonfire at night, if it were in the middle of the forest and the only light to be seen for miles was the dimmest of moonlights. That was to say that looking at her for too long made every other woman in the world seem entirely inconsequential, so I had to retreat and back away from the door as I shook the uncharacteristic sentiment out of my head. After remembering the stupefied look I gave the red-eyed vampire, I kicked myself in the figurative shin — what kind of idiot just stares at a pretty girl with his jaw hanging wide open?

In hindsight, my mouth was only very slightly open, but at the time it felt like I was being blindingly obvious.

Blindingly obvious about my attraction to anyone would not do.

I had to compose myself before we continued, and I stepped through the threshold once more to get what I came here to do done.

"I see you're all cleaned up now," I remarked with every bit of nonchalance I could muster up, turning my attention to the smiling soldier of the faiths-militant beside her. I flashed Agnes another one of my carefree smiles, modifying it slightly to look more like a smirk than anything. "I suppose I've got you to thank for that. Good job, Agnes."

The woman flushed and fidgeted a little, the change in her colouring barely noticeable in the dim lighting of the room. The vampire's deadpan voice cut in with a question intended for the fidgeting girl.

"Why don't you just tell him you—" Agnes rushed to cover the vampire's mouth, who didn't seem to mind as she let the weaker woman literally shut her mouth without much resistance. Said woman mumbled in an adorably threatening manner, glaring at Lenora as if warning her not to say anything more. The vampire sighed in exasperation as she effortlessly peeled Agnes' hands away, then turned back to face my smugly smiling self.

"So, what did you want?"

"I said we'd talk about you 'working' for us later, and I decided now was as good a time as any," I said, taking a seat on her bed with practised nonchalance, patting the space beside me in invitation. I knew she wouldn't bite, but it still earned me a strange glare from the girl beside her, which I pretended not to notice. "Agnes, could you leave us to discuss for a moment?"

The girl froze up for a moment, bowing in a hurry as she excused herself and left through the door.

"You do know she likes you, right?" the vampire asked when the soldier had left the room, earning her a nod from me in reply. "Then why are you so unbothered?"

"She doesn't mean much to me," I replied, shaking my head. "At least not yet. Probably not ever. Does that answer your question?"

Lenora contemplated my answer in silence for a few moments before apparently coming to a conclusion, directing a rather hurtful accusatory squint in my direction. Great, another Gabriel in my life, as if I needed more than one.

"What did you want?"

"I need to know what you can give us," I demanded. "What you can do, what you know, anything and everything that could be useful to us in any way. I'll have to send for my superiors in the Abbey about your situation, and if you don't want us to just go ahead with your execution, you'd be inclined to help me find the best-damned reason to let you live."

That kind of intimidation wasn't very natural to me, but to my delighted surprise, I found I could pull it off pretty well if I was actively trying not to fall head-over-heels for the stunning vampire stood before me. It seemed to work a little too well, though, as I could see her visibly upset at my sudden shift in tone, curling her fingers once more into that same claw that had torn the cell across from this one apart in a matter of minutes.

Before I could forestall her in any way, however, she lunged at me with a vengeance, pinning me down with my stomach flattened against the cold floor.

"How's it feel, being so helpless?" I heard the vampire whisper into my ear, her lips brushing against my skin with every word evoking a sensation that seemed tantalizingly... pleasant? Her hands were wrapped around my mouth, squeezing tight enough to hurt and completely immobilize my jaw as I wriggled around in her inescapable grasp, face-down as she jerked my head back with every utterance. My heart raced harder than it had ever done in my life, as this was the first time I'd ever faced my likely death able to do sod all about it.

So all things considered, the answer would've been... not good?

I kept struggling against her iron hold, finding my arms pinned by her knees as she straddled the small of my back with the weight of her body. She wasn't very heavy, and though the force her limbs could exert was several orders of magnitude greater than someone her size should've been able to pull off, I still found my legs able to wriggle out a few inches if I tried hard enough.

So the plan was pretty simple: buy time, wait for a sign of weakness, get her off me and scream for the guards just outside the cell.

That would probably kill me, so maybe let's just try and talk things out?

"I... not very good... yep..." came my muffled answer, the sound attenuated by Lenora's much cleaner hands. "Not good at all..."

"Womanizing asshole," she hissed, again jerking my head back a little too far. It hurt like hell, and my pained, muffled grunt said as much. "Keep me in a cell? Let me live? I haven't left 'cause I thought you were reasonable, but apparently, you're just as much a prick as all the others — you're not calling the shots here!"

As if to emphasize that point, she jerked my head back again with more force than was strictly necessary, eliciting another painful grunt from me. The pointy tips on the nails of her thumbs dug painfully into my neck, and I couldn't help but shudder involuntarily.

"Alright, alright!" I exclaimed, having no choice but to speak through her grip. "Calm down! I didn't mean to anger you, alright? I just need to know what you can offer us, that's —"

I was interrupted by my blood trickling down the sides of my throat, her nails finally breaking through my skin as she pushed on the wounds with her thumbs. I winced again, but kept myself from making a sound.

"Why? Why should I listen to you?" she asked, pushing on her thumbs a little harder as if to bring my attention to her effortless power over me. "Why shouldn't I just kill you?"

"Because I'm probably the only one willing to work with you!" I shouted, trying to look up at her face. "You kill me now, and you'll be spending the rest of your whole miserable fucking life on the run!"

That seemed to check her aggression for a moment, and she paused to consider something while keeping very painful pressure on the back of my neck. While I waited for her to come to whatever epiphany was forming in her head, I thanked the gods I used to believe in for the fact that my chainmail shirt and the collar of my surcoat would be able to cover up my wounds. Oh, how I missed the times I only ever had to worry about a hickey or two.

"Why?" she asked after a short pause, looking down at me curiously. "Why work with me?"

"Well..." I paused, thinking up an answer that wouldn't earn me another attempt at rubbing salt onto my wounds (without the salt, plus more violent rubbing). I didn't have one, so I tried to recall the circumstances that led us here instead. "You didn't seem like you wanted to hurt anyone, and I probably wouldn't have been able to stomach just killing you while you were out cold like that..."

I paused again, recalling her sleeping face from just this morning.

"Oh, right. Gods, I forgot to mention how good you looked! I mean, you're great now, but gods, that look in your eyes was just—"

I stopped myself before I could speak any further, having realized I was thinking out loud in my mild-pain-induced mental state. I winced again, this time in shame, struggling to look up at the vampire on my back — who had... a very complicated expression on her face. She was blushing, but the only reason I noticed was her pale skin. Or maybe it was the mildly romantic lamplight flickering away in the corner of the room, causing her pristine head of silver hear to glimmer in its calm, orange light? It might've been the fact that she was straddling me, though I wasn't the right way around to enjoy it — or the fact that she was wearing clothes I really liked. By the gods, wasn't she just adorable?

She broke me out of that reverie by lightly reintroducing my face to the prison floor.

"Womanizer," she muttered with apparent disdain, looking down on me.

"S-sorry?" I asked, not quite sure what she meant. No, I knew what she meant, I just wasn't thinking about womanizing at the moment. Right now, it was just her — just her eyes, just the mild scent of the soap most of the guys under my command used (which for some reason smelled better on her), just her firm little butt on the small of my back.

Shit.

I was getting carried away. I wanted to slap myself for the uncharacteristic lapse in judgement, but found that my arms were still very much pinned to the floor by her knees.

"Sorry,” I repeated, calmer this time as I focused on correcting my mistake. “Would you mind doing that again?"