By Blood We Live

Memories rolled across her mind in unrelenting waves. Haiti was a small lush place then… too small to hide in. Who would risk their life to give sanctuary to a motherless child? No one was that brave when a mob came calling. They'd easily found her, had mercilessly beaten and violated her, and then dragged her to a pyre to cover their shame. Already half-dead from the abuse and hemorrhaging badly, they'd lit tinder around her. Flames quickly caught the hem of her ragged dress. Heat raced up her legs, but she was too weak to move and could barely scream. Her protest came out as a deep, resounding moan of agony. She would have been their bonfire that night, had a man with honor not shown up. Maybe that's why she loved the weightlessness of vapor so.

That was how Alfonse had come to her, as vapor.

Searing heat had given way to cool relief. The jeers and curses all around her had turned into screams of terror. Something that no human mind could fathom had rescued her from the flames, and now the townspeople knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was more on the island to fear than her. The least likely person, the nobleman of means, wielded the wrath and destructive power of an entity that they were horrified to name.

Humans fled. The beach had returned to a place of peace beneath the moon. A gentle hand had cradled her skull, lifting her throat to his mouth. A gentle whisper offered her a choice with a promise, "I will not hurt you; do you want to live?"

Something human within her recoiled as she swallowed her own blood, but that feral, primal animus within knew she was dying, and it fought with all its might to survive. Blood choked her words; all she could do was nod. But her mind screamed a thousand questions as his beautiful lips parted and the moonlight glinted off his fangs.

Yet, his murmur was so serene. "Relax. I must do this now before your heart stops beating or it will be too late,

chérie."

She remembered her

making as though it were only moments ago. More than two hundred years still could not eclipse the horror of what people had done to her, nor could she ever forget what Alfonse had given her.

Through his sanguine kiss, her broken bones and violated flesh had begun to knit as her muscles relaxed. Raw nail beds from fighting rapists and aggressors began to heal. Pain literally ceased with his kiss, and then there was only sweet pressure at her neck. Life was draining out of her with each suckle; the world slowed down, her hearing dulled, her eyes closed against the moon. The burns that had engulfed her legs cooled, the puffiness of her swollen face eased. For a moment, there was a velvet cloak of dark peace that enveloped her, a totality of nothingness so peaceful that if she could have, she would have wept. Initially, she could feel him, then see him within her mind's eye as he threw his head back with his eyes closed, ecstasy staining his expression, chest heaving from the exertion, moonlight casting crimson prisms in saliva and blood against porcelain canines. He was horrifying and gorgeous, this nobleman that had claimed her.

"Breathe," he'd commanded.

A gasp shuddered through her and relief made him hug her.

Tears stung her eyes as she searched for a place to discreetly land amongst the modern day humans that strolled the Atlantic City boardwalk so carefree at night. It was time to return her thoughts to the present. Without Alfonse, the past was a place of pain.

But the memories had a stranglehold on her. Her first question upon her awakening in Alfonse's arms had been so naïve.

"I will live?"

His dark eyes had flashed with both triumph and remorse. "

Non. You will exist." He'd then touched her disheveled hair with reverence. "I'm sorry, it was the only way."

Even then she hadn't fully understood. All she was sure of was that a strange nobleman had found her and had saved her at her darkest hour. His handsome face still haunted her… deeply intense, dark eyes… thick brows furrowed in a frown of concern. Square jaw owning a slight cleft. Strong, Romanesque nose. A shock of glistening brunette hair spilling across his shoulders when the wind tired of it. His mouth lush and ruby-stained, punished by the suckle.

"Why didn't you just let me die?" It had seemed fair enough a question then.

"Because you'd fought so hard to live, and what they'd accused you of was a lie. I am a man of principle. Without principles, we are all just animals."

His admission became a sensual murmur that bonded them forever. "I have watched you since I came to this island… you are an exquisite beauty that I could never allow to endure the sentence for my sins. Even being what I am, there is a code of ethics. Never take more than you need, never take from those who are innocent,