I stared at him as he pulled me closer wrapping me up in his arms. Then he leaned in and burried his face into the crook of my neck. I knew he was breathing me in. He told me once before that my scent soothed him. What he didn't know was that his intoxicated me.

I leaned into him breathing in as deeply.

I felt his heart beat calm down. His heart. That pumped with my blood. Keeping him alive. It was strange how that worked. Very much in contrary with all that we know..with science itself. That he has a beating heart at all defied explanations. That it pumped with my blood even less so. Yet I had his blood in me too. Given freely once a month on a full moon. Its what kept me alive too. We sustained each other ... nourished each other. Trived on each other. Bonded as no other couple has been before us. No human couple and yet we were not a couple. Not even real friends. We didn't speak to each other. We shared no humor, no sorrow, only our blood. Then I returned to my world and he to his. Till we were summoned again into each other's lives by our mutual needs.

"Talk to me," he whispered softly calming down considerably.

I shook my head. I had nothing to say. I didn't as a rule lie to him. My failings have always been in my ommissions. Serious ommissions.

"There's nothing to tell," I said simply.

He quirked a brow at me disbelievingly but as he saw that I was well and in one piece there wasn't much else he could do.

I met his challenging stare head on refusing to balk under pressure till a flock of my unruly hair threatened to undermine me. Falling across my brow I broke the eye to eye contact I was struggling to hold. I sighed with relief even as Lucian's eyes lighten in amusement. Reaching up he swept my hair aside then gently framed my face.

"I am sorry," he said, "for shaking you. And I am sorry for whatever I did that hurt you... that reduced you to tears." He ran a caressing finger down my cheek as if tracing the freshly laid out track of running tears. But my cheeks were thankfully no longer damp and my eyes were dry of the torrent of tears that poured out only a short while ago.

"Make sure you get some sleep," he said before moving into my kitchen to pull down a skillet. "But eat first. I'll make you an omelette." He moved about my kitchen with unconscious swiftness. The sizzle of a hot pan intermixed with the chopping of his ingredients. A moment later and the delicious fragrance of my omelette sizzled beneath my nose. I watched with unbridled anticipation as he skillfully shifted the contents of the skillet onto the plate before me.

I immediately tucked in to take a hurried bite risking the scorching heat but Lucian got to it first. His cool breath of air blew gently across my fork drawing my attention away from my meal to fixate it as always on him. His cool hazel eyes met mine. They were clear amber. Tranquil and smooth. I couldn't help the smile that spread across my lips. Seeing him at peace made me happy. It was so rarely that his eyes were this clear. The usual stormy dark swirls were gone. I knew it had a lot to do with his having just fed but it was also because he was aging as a vampire. No longer was he a temperamental youngling. The first three years since the change were almost over. He was achieving his prime.

Survival was always hardest in the initial three years. Most vampires didn't make it. They were either hunted and slaughtered by the humans or their own kind. But Lucian had survived. We had done it together.

I still recalled that first day when he'd turned up on my doorstep for help. That cold and rainy day three years ago. It had been a stormy day with rain cascading in bucket loads. I had driven home from college to find Lucian in my driveway standing in the pouring rain. If it hadn't been for the flash of lighting I wouldn't even have spotted him in time. The blinding rain rendered my vision obscure and the beam of my headlights only shone so far before the sheet of rain blocked all in my path.

I screamed when I saw him and slammed my foot on the breaks.