He was tall, with long legs and broad shoulders, and sat easily in the little chair placed in the corner of the room. His eyes, dark and flawless as jewels, glinted slightly in the dim light as he watched the writhing, pounding bodies of the mortals as they twisted to the boom of what they called music. Despite the simplicity of his dress, black jeans, dark violet shirt, and his knee-length black coat, there was a kind of casual elegance about him. He only sat, taking slight sips of the bourbon he’d ordered, and his stillness seemed utterly out of place from the quick, jerking movements of the crowd of young men and women on the dance floor.

“They say that drinking alone is a bad sign.”

Rashed’s eyes moved, only his eyes, sweeping towards the voice. She was leggy and blond; her own jeans seemingly painted on, her eyes and skin glowing from exertion and deftly applied cosmetics. Her face was beautiful, with skin like alabaster and lips painted a hot, wet red chosen to make a man just dream about nibbling them. After only a moment, the darkly-featured vampire’s lips twitched into a smooth and pleasant smile. “I like to live dangerously.” His voice, more intoxicating than any bourbon, held no accent, but had an oddly musical cadence to it. He gestured with one elegantly long-fingered hand, for her to sit. “And where is your companion?”

She sat, crossing her legs and matching his smile with her own. “Alas, it seems that all likely contenders are already occupied. But why don’t you buy me a drink, and fix both of our problems?” She smiled again, folding her hands over her knee. “Jack and coke.”

“Jack and coke.” Having only to tap one finger onto the elbow of a passing waitress, Rashed never looked away from his companion as he ordered her drink. When the order came, he lifted his own glass in a slight toast, which she returned. They fell into an idle patter, the words flowing to meet each other easily. The drinks flowed, until she felt those warning clouds of fog tickle at the back of her head. She liked the slippery line of almost drunk as opposed to being fully drunk. When she was ready to leave, he stood also, a hand extended as she rose from her chair. A bemused sort of smile crossing her face, she took it, further amused as he tucked it beneath his arm as they walked from the club.

“You don’t have to walk me home.” She protested, though far from vehemently.

“Nonetheless.”

When they reached her door, his smile widened slightly, his brilliant eyes catching the faint light of the lamp on the street. Rashed leaned forward, brushing his lips across her cheek, but lifted her fingers to his lips as she turned her head towards his. “Good night.” He murmured smoothly, stepping back to wait as she unlocked her door and teetered inside.

They amused him, these mortals.

She watched him, she couldn’t help it, couldn’t make herself look away. He looked so like that one, that suave, dark devil that had changed her life forever. The painfully loud music that had flooded her mind seemed to fade away as she closed off the rest of the world. His scent was not the same, but he was like her. She could tell from the way he moved, the way he spoke, the way he smelled… it all screamed of immortal power and blood lust. The same blood lust that clawed nightly at her insides.

Dianna tossed her heavy mane of hair, watching still as the small blond trotted up to him. The beauty was out on a hunt of her own but had found a predator rather than the prey she sought. The idea left Dye grinning, and she stood rooted to the spot.

Watching, ever watching. Listening, ever listening.

As they spoke, as they drank, as they rose to leave, and as they walked to the girls home. Adrenaline hit Dye’s blood and her heart gave a wild leap before it began to slam against her ribs in anticipation. She stood silent as a part of the shadows, waiting for the kill, that sweet, beautiful clash of fangs and flesh that would end that girl.

But it never came, not even a small taste of such a violent taking, or any taking, was seen. He simply let her go, let his prey in and out of his company as if hunting was only a mild need. Disgusted rode paramount in Dianna’s fractured mind. It was madness to let such much needed blood get away.

Madness, aren’t you the one that is mad?

“I am not crazy.”

You are stocking a perfectly normal man and woman in hopes of witnessing a murder.

“He is not normal.”

More normal than you.

“Or you.”

Dianna stopped, she was talking to herself again. She tugged at her own hair to punish herself, and watched in disbelief as the vampire let the girl back into her home where she was safe and secure.

OOC: Was she actually speaking out loud, or just in her head?

EDIT: Never mind...

OOC: Sorry it took so long. I don't have any Internet access on the weekends.

”She will return to the club, either tomorrow night or the next weekend. She’ll look for me, though would never admit such to herself much less any other. When she finds me she’ll act at first as if she doesn’t remember me, though eventually she shall.”

Rashed’s voice was steady and thoughtful, as if he were telling a story that had already happened. In some ways, he was. He knew the turns by now, and still they excited him, amused him. The snow that fluttered and spiraled from the sky to dot the naturally spiky black hair he kept short was ignored, as was the chill wind that sliced across his dark features with a knife’s edge. The cold didn’t even register to his mind; Rashed was deeply immersed in his own thoughts and musings. Deeply immersed in the craving and the lust that the demon inside of him held with slick and greedy claws. He knew that a vampire from the club had watched him there, and had felt her -for surely it was a her- eyes upon him as he walked the girl to her home. Now, he had heard her voice, slipping to his ears on the currents of the chill air, though it didn’t seem she spoke to him.

“We’ll talk, and drink, and talk more. Eventually she will start home, and I shall again walk her to her door. There she’ll seduce me, or allow me to seduce her, and then invite me in.”

Here he paused, angling his head slightly as he studied her door. This is where the certainty ended. What would he do then? Would he take her immediately, draw out the hot blood that pumped through her veins in such silken rivers? The blood that he’d smelled, flowing beneath her soft skin when he’d challenged himself by brushing his lips along her cheek, tortured himself further by pressing them against her fingers. Despite the steadiness of his movements, his fingers had nearly trembled with his desire to drag her slim body against his own. To ravish, and take without mercy or reservation. To devour. Warmth had enveloped his flesh with that raging need, had flashed like cutting flame. And still, he had subjugated that want, had held it at bay even when it howled beneath his skin. All the while, he’d been aware, so painfully aware, of the blood that rushed beneath its thin curtain of pale flesh. Would he allow that hunger to overcome him, or would he torment himself even more, by pleasuring her, by feeling her warmth beneath him, surrounding him? He’d done so before, denying himself nearly to the point of madness.

Oh, but it made the feast so much sweeter when he finally allowed himself to drink.

“They think that they are the lords of this world, these humans. Believing that all they have to fear are others like themselves. That is amusing to me.”

Rashed turned suddenly, jeweled eyes so vivid they seared through the night, as they landed directly upon Dianna. His gaze was clear and direct and perfectly pleasant, but something frightening lurked behind that cool, maddeningly composed blue. Behind him, the sickly yellow-orange light of the streetlamp framed his broad shoulders, crept across his strong, compelling features. He seemed nearly innocuous as he stood there, hands in the pockets of his dark coat as it was dusted with snow, just another handsome face in a city with so many to spare. One of Rashed’s eyes glowed like a dark sapphire that just barely caught a slender thread of light. The effect was eerie, one eye lit, the other as dark as the shadows that swam so greedily against the edges of the lamp’s glow.

“Is it not that way with you?”

((OOC: Naw, s'okay. I manage to be kinda slow about things from time to time. No big deal ;) ))

A wiser, saner person may have thought to run, or at least register fear and begin to work on self-preservation. A wiser, saner person would have seen through the transparent outer shell and recognized the danger. A wiser, saner person would have heard the purr of violence beneath the subtle and rich tones of his voice. A wiser, saner person… Dye was neither, and she did not see or hear the demon within the man, but rather, just the man. That spectacular outer shell that had caught her attention in the first place. Her fragmented mind was entranced by the vision of masculine beauty and she wrapped herself up in the scent of him, committing it to memory and storing it away. This was a vampire she would not soon forget.

As she stared she felt herself falling forward, drowning in those limpid pools of ocean water that others would call eyes. They seemed to glow like gems, flaking with light and glinting hints of fire. The softly falling snow seemed only to add to his unearthly quality. The white flakes became musky gold in the lamp light and showered over him as if the heavens had opened up and spilled down its light. To Dianna’s fledgling eyes it was something she could not look away from no matter how hard she tried.

He stood so long there, at the girls door, doing nothing more than talking to himself. His voice was as hypnotic as the rest of him. Something that seemed to weave silver strands into her mind and pull her that much closer. Like prey… he drew her like she drew in prey. She had stocked him and now he returned the favor unwaveringly.

He turned, suddenly, only turned, but it hit Dianna like a fist to the gut and she stumbled backward several paces. Her shattered mind reached outward, every stretching, searching for a hint of menace, of a threat. The air held tension, vibrated with it, with power, and with a compulsion that made Dianna slowly drift forward once more. He stood half cloaked in shadows, almost a part of them, and Dye soon found herself standing completely in the light and completely within his sight. Vulnerability raced like wild fire, made her head throb with warning pains, but hot on it’s heels came a rudimentary jealousy of the shadows that seemed to nearly caress the vision before her. They covered him like a long lost lover, and her fragile mind tripped over itself to understand what she was seeing, to take in the data and bend it to logic by her simple fore of will.

Her strong will couldn’t make logical reasoning for what she saw any more than it could stop her feet from carrying her ever closer to this fellow immortal until she stood, nearly toe-to-toe, staring up at him

The contrasts were stark. Her unnaturally red hair to his jet black, her nearly white eyes to his livid ocean blue. She compared and contrasted every minute little detail before her eyes began to clear, and her mind began to function once more. The voices so commonly hiding the shadows of her mind seemed long gone. Her mind had no space for them, it was far too busy with the flesh and blood source of a voice before her.

He had asked her a question a moment ago, before she had felt drawn in to him. What had he asked her? That velvet purr of a demon floated through her mind again, and Dianna felt herself begin to smile.

“I am not long immortal, adjusting does not give me time for amusements at the mortals I was once a part of. They lie in blood and I hear them all, petty and confused, arrogant and blind. But who is to say we do not do the same?”

Rashed watched calmly as Dianna came closer, her steps so slow and absent on the ground. Her eyes, fascinatingly pale with only the faintest blush of blue, locked on his. He moved not at all as she drew closer, closer, until she stood so close he could see her eyelashes flicker when she looked up at him. His dark, dark eyes flashed slightly as he studied her. Her hair was red, so vibrant a color he felt sure that it was false. Despite that, it detracted not at all from her looks. Her skin was pale, so pale it would be sure to raise a few mortals’ eyebrows if not for the rest of her appearance. A living man looking at her, would see the gothic in her appearance, and discount the pallor then. Dark clothes hung on a slight, slim body, and tattoos as just as dark stained the pallid flesh. She was entrancing in her contrasts, he thought vaguely, his jeweled azure eyes never lingering in one place, but slowly slipping over her. What wasn’t white, so pure white, was dark, a blackness with a purity in itself.

Fascinating.

When she spoke, his eyes flickered back to hers, resting lightly on that pale, white-blue gaze. Something not altogether sane coiled in that gaze, and the thought only intrigued him further. Madness was something unpredictable to Rashed, and unpredictability was something of interest. When one knew not what to expect, it required them to think quickly, it gave them a challenge.

Rashed enjoyed challenges.

“Indeed… Who is to say?” He murmured softly, that silky, intoxicating baritone flowing with a warmth and understated power that seemed to make the very snowflakes shiver. “It is only our own perception that decides the truth. Are we the blind ones, the arrogant ones, or are they?” Giving in to impulse, Rashed lifted a hand to touch the very tip, just the tip, of one long, elegant finger to Dianna’s chin, as if to lift it into the light. The darkness of his flesh in comparison with hers was startling. The elegant, polished vampire’s skin was never truly pale; the lightest it became was a dusky golden shade, an oddity in an undead. When he spoke, his voice was nearly a whisper, as if secrets stole across the words. “Does it matter?”

The shadows cloaked them both now, now that Dianna had come so close. The light, that murky gloomy light, that bled from the bulb of the lamp above them pushed indifferently at the veiling darkness. Rather than push the night away, it seemed to embrace it, as if those hesitant flickers wanted only to slide away. Into the dark. But still, they fell dispiritedly, falling over his black coat and dark hair reluctantly, as if they knew they didn’t belong.

The very air seemed to spark with a sort of ethereal electricity. It was an unsettling feeling, something unnatural and yet as common place as the snow that drifted and danced around them. Dianna couldn’t deny the pull of power under his voice, the seductive trace of power that intrigued her and called to the beast within. He was a bigger, stronger predator, but she was just as much a hunter as he. But how deep did the darkness go in him, she wondered? Was he a murderer like herself, did he kill violently, taste the agony and adrenaline and power of the kill as it was made?

Just seeing him from without was hard to tell for certain. He exuded power, grace, danger, but the subtle hint of a murderer eluded her senses. Her heart did a flip-flop in her chest, trepidation growing into a persistent throb of pain behind her eyes. It was a warning she did not heed, and as his finger lightly touched her chin her entire body went rigid.

Dianna expected pain, the shattering, splintering of her mind that would collapses around her as the mind of another would take its place and create another voice in the shadows of her mind. The pain did not come, but rather the contact eased the throbbing behind her eyes, pushed it aside. His deep timber voice was there, rich and hypnotic… but unlike the rest it seemed whole, alive, and somehow apart from her. She could control the others, dead voices of dead people, but this one was there and yet out of reach.

A shiver stole through her blood, chilling her and bringing a startling glow to her eyes. It was a self defensive light that seemed as cold as her skin quickly became. Her temperature dropped beneath that of the cold, crisp air and snow as the shadows seemed to close in around her. Trapped, that was how she felt. Drawn in on a lure and trapped in the hold of a stronger predator.

“Dose it matter?” she restated the question aloud to try and brake the connection his touch had started, the glimmer in her mind fading and yet remaining as if she had only seen part of a much bigger picture. Even so, she could not tear her eyes away from his. “In a way it does. A judge can not judge another if he himself is on trial. Drowning in your own deception, fatal and promised to happen. And yet, if the Grand Design does not account for ego’s flaw, why should those with egos?”

She frowned slightly, her own words reflected back to her. They made no real since to her, not really. An yet somehow they seemed like the sanest word to come out of her for the past several days.

OOC: I'll probably end up making you wait again. Sorry, I thought I'd have plenty of time today, but my creative brain cells seem to have deserted my brain.

Rashed traced a line from just beneath Dianna’s chin, slowly drawing his fingertip up her cheek. Just the very tip of his finger touched her skin, and felt as she suddenly seemed to chill. But still he did not break the contact; he traced the line of her jaw, across her cheek. He would not let his hand drop away, not unless she asked him to. It was rare that he gave into his impulses, even such tiny ones as this, but he’d wondered what her skin felt like.

It was cool, which wasn’t surprising, and it seemed soft beneath his light touch.

He watched as her eyes suddenly glowed cold in the weak light, the abrupt change fascinating to him. It was intriguing how they changed so suddenly, becoming as cool and crisp as the very air. Her eyes reminded Rashed of a time when he’d seen a young boy being pulled from a half-frozen pond. The boy’s flesh had been so white, so pale, pale white, with the faintest flush of blue beneath the pallor. Dianna’s eyes were like that now, cold and pale as a dead boy’s skin.

He wanted to shiver, not from the cold, but from the memory and what he saw in those eyes.

His own gaze seemed to go even darker, richer, full of secrets and whispers and all the bloody nights he’d seen. It was always there, raging in the stolen blood coursing through his veins, that lust for fear and pain. For a time, he’d given in to it, had allowed it the free reign it so desperately desired. He’d snarled and slavered, ripped and gouged, and taken what he’d wanted. But it was all so fleeting, there and gone like snowflakes in the sunlight. What pleasure there had been had deserted him too swiftly.

And so he’d slowed, sipping rather than gulping, carving rather than ripping.

Rashed had learned self-control, and no matter how much the beast raged inside his chest as he let his gaze linger, light and easy, on Dianna’s, he would maintain it. He listened to her words, turned them thoughtfully in his mind. His dark brows drew down, the thin line that was a scar shining from white from the black. Was she right? Perhaps, perhaps not, but either way he wondered.

“Is ego really a flaw? And if it is, then are there any who are free of it?” His was soft, contemplative rather than challenging. “In judging others, the arbitrator must choose his own lines, his own beliefs. The world is deception; it is what we see rather than what truly is. Is it not ego to assume that we are right, and what we see is right?” Rashed paused, that smooth ribbon of his voice halting thoughtfully. Interesting, he mused. “However, if we didn’t, we would have nothing. The world is based upon assumption thought truth.”

OOC: I just realized how weird that sounded.

Madness, it seeped from her as surely as tears could leak from her eyes. It wove around her, a protective shield against reality, against Rashed. Dianna felt it, knew it as it wrapped around the source of his voice in her mind. It caged the source, pushed it out and away and forbid it to listen to her mind.

She needed to flee, felt it in her very bones.

Dianna reached up to flatten her palms against Rashed’s chest, intent on pushing him back, on making a space between them so that she could breath again, of freeing herself from the hypnotics tones his voice wove into the air. Her lean muscles coiled like springs ready to snap, and then suddenly went soft and pliant as her chilled palms caught a mild heat seeping through Rashed’s shirt. Dye looked down at the backs of her own hands, dumbfounded by the deathly paleness they carried. They usually only looked like that when she woke, ravenous with thirst. She had only fed a short time ago, there should have been a bit more life to her color.

She blinked away the oddity, sensing again that vague glimpse of something beyond what her eyes beheld. Something veiled and hidden even leashed, perhaps. She shuddered when again she caught his gaze, watching the dark blue grow turbulent, darkening like the sea during a storm.

A storm, she thought mildly, it `seemed to suit what was hidden beneath his placid surface. The thought was unsettling, but everything about this man was unsettling.

“No one is free,” she murmured absently, really only catching the first part of his wonderings. “Death has a claim to every soul, undead and mortal alike. We think we flee him, but he knows better. He sits on his pale hands and bides his time. Watching, waiting, breathing, taking. He savors mortal souls while greedy eyes wait for immortal mistakes. He hungers, his course on immortals is our thirst. We think we live on blood, but really we drowned on it the day our bodies died and our souls were claimed to leave us zombies with minds. Death owns us all.”

Rashed didn’t so much as quiver as he felt Dianna’s hands suddenly press against his chest. It was startling, the sudden sensation, but there was something more. He watched calmly as her muscles knotted, tensed with a strength driven by… was it fear? The vampire watched, still so calm, so controlled, as those tangled muscles suddenly went boneless, supple as silk. The chill of her flesh suddenly sank through the thin fabric of his shirt, spots of startling cold against his own warmth.

She was cold, so cold. It enthralled him, the chill that only an undead could emit. He wanted it for himself, to feel it against his own skin. He craved it, after so long of only the warmth of life pressed against him. Pale, pale as ivory; cold, cold as the wind that trailed teasing fingers across his face, through his hair. It was such a contrast, the chill that clung to her, and the undeniable life in her movements.

Gods, he wanted it.

Just as she wanted to run. He could feel it, feel the urge pumping off of her in such enticing waves. She shuddered, her fingers dancing across his skin, the sensation felt so acutely even with the barrier of silk, and he thought he might go mad. Rashed was right there, right on that blade-thin line, his control ready to be broken. All of the thoughts about feasting on the blood of the mortal had drained from his head. But the beast in his chest was still awake, still raging, demanding to be fed.

It wanted to feed.

Her voice reached his ears again, and he struggled to bring back enough control to listen. Her words brought a smile to his lips, and the expression was purely wicked on his sinful features. Maybe she was right; maybe they were just slaves to death. Maybe… but that didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy it. His eyes went dark, darker than they already were, nearly black. Sometimes, he thought dimly as the last of his control fled him, sometimes there was pleasure in not holding back anymore.

Rashed’s fingers, those long elegant fingers, fisted over her wrists, showing the strength in them that was always tethered back. The brutality. “Then maybe we should take some back.” His voice, that intoxicating glide, rasped as he crushed his mouth to hers. Let her beat him off, if that was what she really wanted, even his infamous control, shaky from the testing on the mortal, had its limits.

OOC: Sorry to leave you hanging, but I probably won't be able to reply until Tuesday or so. My life is so... cluttered, Internet time fluctuates mightily.

((OOC: S'all right, I'll see you when I see you ;) ))

Shackles, that was what his hands felt like. Hard, painful brands of metal that encircled and bruised her wrists with a brutal force she had come to know so well. Her own grip had often seemed iron strong when she held on to writhing mortals and forced them to submit to her feeding. But Rashed’s grips was not iron, it was steal. Solid, strong, uncaring, and unforgiving steal.

She was trapped, far deeper than she had expected. Even as he spoke her mind began to splinter with panic, sharp shards that sliced through her nerves like shattered glass. The flecks cut deep, and terror spiced her blood as her heart began to thud beneath her calm exterior, bruising her ribs from is painful pounding and echoing in her ears.

He was taking something back.

What was he taking back? What was he doing, why wouldn’t he let go? Dye jerked her arms, tried to throw herself backward, but he was unmovable. And older, far older. That was what she had smelled on him, his age, his power. They went hand in hand and Dianna finally understood why the fledgling beast within her had been so drawn to him, so enthralled.

Dianna opened her mouth to scream, and then his was there, hard and punishing against her own. Her instincts made her shrink back and struggle, trying to fight the predator she found herself at the mercy of.
She could feel the beast in him, hear it raging in her mind as the beast within her betrayed her. It reached out to see, sought his, drawn by the violent nature of another like itself.

Within her mind she screamed, the sound echoing and projecting itself out to assault the Rashed. It was her last means of fighting, her last defense. Dianna reached out to him, that source of life that was his mental path way, sought it with every ounce of her will and beat it as wildly as she struggled against his hands. Her small, slightly translucent fingernails had long since lengthened themselves into deadly claws that she attempted to rake across his chest and arms, slicing through his silk shirt to get to the skin beneath.

Instinct, that fight and flight mechanism that so often controlled Dye’s crazed mind, it ruled her every move.

The beast within her, however, bided its time, waiting for her will power to ware away, waiting to take over and call out to the beast in Rashed. She felt it stirring deep within her, felt it storing its energy even as her own began to ware down. It waited to demand attention for the like minded beast it Rashed, to demand to be satisfied, to be fed, to have it’s call answered.

Splinters cracked his mind, his thoughts, digging deep inside like tiny shards of glass. They hurt and they made it feel as if his very thoughts were bleeding. Annoyances. Pain was an old and familiar friend to him; it only fed that stirring animal lunging in his chest. It glanced against him, bounced off like hail from glass. Dianna wanted to scream, he could feel they way she pulled in his grasp. He could feel how she writhed against him; feel how her mind stabbed at his in a furious assault. And if it had been only fear he felt Rashed would have let go, and would have backed away.

But there was more than just her want to run. There was a need inside of her. He could feel that too.

Unexpectedly, his grip shifted. Not gentled, but changed. In one smooth movement, he shifted both of her wrists to one hand, long fingers manacling her thin arms effortlessly. Using one hand to press her against him, his mouth pressed hard against hers, but there was heat now instead of simply hunger. His hands were hard enough to bruise against her flesh, and he shoved her back, out of the weak light and against the cold brick of the building.

”You want me…”

His lips were crushed to hers, harsh, punishing, and brutal. But there was more than that. There was a raging flame burning, hot enough to melt her resistances. It was like a storm, violent, whipping, and thrilling. A dark promise burned slick and bloody, potent, ruthless, and utterly exhilarating. Devastating. Black enough to smother, intoxicating enough to shatter any hope of opposition.

”I can feel it…”

Dianna jerked and twisted within the confines of Rashed’s grip. His arms effectively formed solid steal chains, the hand about her wrists as much a shackle as his body was a cage. She squirmed as she found herself crushed against him, her lungs frantically gasping for air every chance he gave her to breathe.

Her lips seemed to bruise beneath the crush of his, her body scorched by the cruel violence of Rashed’s embrace. Her tender flesh tingled and seemed to burn were his skin met with hers; leaving behind red, purple, and blue marks were his hands had been. Her wrists throbbed in protest of the ill treatment, her mouth ached, and the smooth skin of her back was scratched near to bleeding as Rashed’s arm bunched up the thin fabric of her shirt and the sharp brick took tiny slices out of her tender flesh.

A squeal escaped her, followed quickly by a whimper of supplication. Her entreaty was a small sound, and perhaps the last bid of her floundering will power.

--“You want me…”
"No!"

Dianna went perfectly still, her fight fading beneath the sound of a new voice. This one did not waver like the others, it was strong and clear, solid, living, and no matter how hard she attempted to push it away it was there. The savage thing within her pushed at her will, demanding she respond to the intimate call.

--“I can feel it…”

There was a promise beneath his words, overwhelming and merciless; a rich, intoxicating blend of violence and velvet.

Her stiff, unyielding body relaxed, only to coil again with a burning that began somewhere deep within and then spread heat from her toes to her finger tips. Her icy flesh gained a steadily more life-like color as the warmth ran like fiery sparks in her blood, awakening every never ending to a response as sadistic as Rashed’s kisses.

The beast within her called out triumphantly, her body arching off the wall to close every inch of possible space between herself and Rashed. Not even shadows could form between them as yearning and lust beat back her fear with tongues of fire. Her soft lips stopped battling his, and began to accept the crush of his mouth against her own.

Rashed’s lips wanted to curl into a grin, feral and blackly pleased, as he felt Dianna’s surrender. Yes, God yes. This is what he wanted, what he craved. Her slender body pressed against his, and he shuddered. His hand released her wrists, fisted in her hair, yanked. He wanted her head back, her lips open and vulnerable to his own. Violence. Let it rage, he thought dimly, the notion barely piercing the blurring red haze that seemed to cloud his brain. He wanted violence, brutality, and he felt how she wanted it as well.

The dark immortal seemed to cage the younger vampire with his body, powerful muscles taut as steel cords. Free hand streaking up, beneath her shirt, Rashed explored the soft, abraded skin of first Dye’s back, then her belly, his mouth feasting on hers. Taste, texture, it all only registered in the back of his mind, pushed back by his raging, wild urge to feed and take.

And, in taking, gave.

Long-fingered hands shifted, roamed, hungrily exploring Dye. Rashed wanted to stop in some places, to savor and to study. He had to have, he had to take. And those hands, those elegant hands, bruised. His mouth, skilled and hot, raced from her lips to her neck, sampling the taste of her. His breaths were staggered, catching as they rasped in and out. God in heaven, he wanted to rip into her, to feel her surround him.

No, not yet.

Even as his thieved blood blazed through his veins, some small part of him not yet maddened with his lust chained back his desire. Rashed could, would give just as much as he took. More if he could help it. His hands, skilled and rough, teased the younger vampire, always moving, stroking here, scraping there, in a capricious pattern meant to drive Dianna to the brink.

And then to take her over.

OOC: I know I probably sound like a broken record, but I'm sorry it took so long. I'm not used to people writing such nice, long replies on such short notice.

(OOC: Sorry, I have been so busy the past couple of days that I wasn’t able to get on at all. And you don’t have to worry about me being fussy, I am usually pretty easy to get along with ^-^`` ))

Dianna felt a haze somewhere in her mind, an elusive shadow of red that she couldn’t quite identify, but it was something not of her own thoughts. It was part of him, she knew it as clearly as she was beginning to know the mental path she could connect to him by. With the mental touch came the steady flow of vivid and increasingly detailed images of what his mind’s eye conjured that were painted with heat and lust she could feel radiating off of him.

The second his hands freed her bruised and aching wrists, Dianna’s arms snaked around his shoulders, her hands fisting in his hair and pushing his head down onto hr mouth as her lips and tongue worked to keep up with the fiery branding Rashed’s lips where leaving on hers. She yelped in pain when he yanked her head back, her mouth opening wide to gasp in air for the split second that they were parted. When again his mouth as clamped onto hers she had lost control of the kiss, left completely at the mercy of Rashed’s kisses.

She submitted to it, accepted it, and clung to him all the tighter as her body seemed ready to go up in flames. Every sensation collided in her mind, creating a haze thought clouded her thoughts until she forgot which way was up.

Trapped between Rashed’s much bigger body and the bricks that were cutting into her soft skin, Dianna was all too happy to arch herself and press her hips firmly against the hard heat of Rashed as his hands roamed over her skin. As they soothed away one pain, his beautiful and brutal touched created a painful heat of their own. His every touch demanded a response. The heat that pooled low in her body only seemed to worsen until she was writhing with the same desperate need she sensed in Rashed.

He demanded she respond to him, pushed and beat at her with sensations. As his mouth moved to her neck she convulsed in his arms, shaken right down to her toes as she began to claw at Rashed’s shoulders.

She wanted him, God help her, she needed him!

She shook in his arms, shuddering with a simmering, leashed violence that was all her own. It lingered, hot and ready, just beneath the surface and begging to be set loose.

Maybe they would both be going mad.

It seemed that each tried their hardest to shatter the other. Rashed shuddered as she arched against him, as her heat met his, matched and sizzled all the hotter. The haze in his mind, his eyes, was red as blood, burned like flame. More, he thought greedily, ripping Dye’s shirt away like paper and dipping his lips first to the soft skin of her collarbone. His mouth blazed a smoldering trail over the pale, ivory flesh, and he sank teeth into the softness that was her skin.

More, more, more.

His hands slipped over her, softly stroking in one place, roughly bruising in another. Rashed couldn’t get enough, couldn’t feel enough, and at the same time, the glut of textures and tastes threatened to overwhelm him. Threatened to smother him. But still, he needed more. For one so small, so seemingly delicate, there was so much of her to explore and discover. When a gasp of pain hissed from her lips, a small thrill shot through his blood like black wine. When she writhed against him, he had to fist his hands against the brick.

Never enough…

Again, his fingers encircled her wrists, but this time there was a strained gentleness in his touch rather than the uncontrolled violence there had been. He lifted her hands, splayed them across his chest. Like a dare. Take more… if you really want to. Rashed wanted her hands on his own skin, wanted her to take some of her own.

OOC: Eeee... my muse is pushing up posies...

The shock of the frozen air over her burning skin cut sharply through her mind, clearing the fog a little. Still, Dye had to blink several times before she could see Rashed clearly and the vivid red glow in his eyes made her own glowing blue one widen in fear. She tensed as she watched his head lower and fisted her hands in his hair as his lips burned hot and moist over her chilled skin.

She gasped at the first brush of his teeth, and then pressed his mouth down against her skin and held him there as his fangs pushed smoothly past the fragile barrier of her skin so that her lust-spiced blood welled forth.

His voice was as rough and gentle has his hands, forceful one minute and tender the next, keeping her on edge and anticipating what his next move might be.

Everywhere, he was everywhere. Found everything. She couldn’t hide anything from him, he was in her mind, in her body, and sipping out her soul in scarlet drops.

Dianna winced when his hands shackled her wrists once more, and yet slowly relaxed under the gentle touch. The strongly leashed aggression simmered right there, just beneath the surface, but it seemed to stay bottled there as he pressed her hands to his chest and encouraged the monster within her to take what it wanted.

It was a challenge, an ultimatum that she couldn’t ignore. She tore at his shirt, shredding the fabric and discarding it. Her cold palms flattened against his hot skin, her fingers splaying out to cover every inch of skin that they could reach as they slowly explored. Dye wrapped her strong fingers around his neck and then slowly glided them down over his chest and down over his abdomen. Her fingertips pushed just beneath the edge of his pants and tickled his skin, teasing him shamelessly as she pressed her mouth to the side of his neck and stroked her tongue against his pulse.

She felt the heat, and tasted the sweet spice just beneath his warm skin, and groaned softly in longing.

A gasp sounded. It might have been from him. Rashed’s muscles tensed, hard and tight as tempered steel coils, as Dianna’s seductively cold hands trailed over his flesh. The chill only fanned the fire of his lust, and his fangs sank deep into the hollow where her shoulder met her throat as the blaze leapt to claw viciously what little control he still had. Her hands, those taunting, teasing hands, slid even lower and he jerked, slamming his hips against hers.

When the barrier of clothing held him back, his mind managed to clear, if only slightly.

He wanted her limp and boneless in his hands, muscles weak from sheer bliss. Arrogant of him perhaps, but Rashed was an arrogant creature. Fangs slipped from skin even as his fingers cruised over, and his lips trailed lower, pausing just above Dye’s breasts. Those lips curved and the smile they formed was sinful, decadent and compelling.

Gracefully, his fingers slid to her jeans, carefully undoing the button and zipper. He left it like that, possessively clinging to silken skin, and slipped those long fingers beneath, tracing erratic patterns on that velvet flesh. The touch was meant to inflame, to pleasure and to frustrate, tantalizing, holding back just when it seemed the embers it kindled were about to blaze.

Rashed’s own need paced and snapped with maddened fury. It raked in his chest, sent his breathing to staccato gasps, but still he held it back. Oh, his touch was rougher than it usually was and his muscled form fairly vibrated with that raging lust, but it made neither any less appealing. Ruthlessly he dragged his hands over her skin, driving her right to the edge, but refusing to let her fly.

He wanted her eyes blind first, and he wanted her to beg.

((OOC: Sorry that took so long :innocent: ))

Dianna yelped out a small sound of pain, her hips aching where they connected hard with Rashed’s. The force drove her back against the brick wall, forced her up, and then let her drop down when his hips moved away so that the bricks clawed at her back again. She looked down as he moved, her eyes flashing like azure crystals against the black of the night as the sheer sexiness of his corrupt, and licentious smile.

To her he looked like a happy cat about to gobble up some helpless mouse that had stumbled across his paws. He was the predator here, not her, she was the prey.

It was painfully sensational.

Dye shuddered as his hands moved, slowly, teasing her senses and tracing dancing flames across her cool skin. She held her breath and desperately clung to his hips as she felt her jeans loosen, desperately wanting the offending garment gone and forgotten. Instead, Rashed left them clinging to her hips and dipped his hands beneath the tight fabric, his fingers domineering and greedy on that soul outward source of heat, the skin so close to her womanhood.

It seemed that, in no time at all, Dianna was clawing desperately at Rashed, writhing in ecstasy and whimpering with entreaty as her bright eyes began to dull and dim-out as they clouded with the foggy haze of pleasure. She could feel his lust beating at her, wrapping around her as tightly as rope cords strung into a tight braid. It was more than her sensitive body could stand, and yet he kept her from reaching the highest peek, held her back while he beat at her, pushed at her with is decadent touch.

He wanted something of her, she felt it as keenly as the firebrand touch of his hands. She had to give him something, but for the life of her, she couldn’t peace together what he was ordering from her with. Her mind fractured, splintered, and then fell back into the dull, thrilling haze he had created, befuddling every scrap of rational thought that she had left.

OOC: Grrr... I'm sorry that it's been taking me forever... First my computer kept dying when I tried to get on the internet and then it wouldn't let me open Word... I'm on the college comp now, so I should be fine.

(>)__(<)

He watched, fascinated, as those pale, ice-chip eyes went blurry. Blind with the sheer pleasure assaulting her senses. It was thrilling to watch. Rashed felt her tremble beneath his touch, and felt the heat her reactions brought to his own body. He didn’t even notice the snow that still fell, drifting down to silently settle upon his bared shoulders. The easy drifts slipped down determinedly, though unnoticed by both. The flakes seemed almost envious of the pair, enraptured in each other as they were. But the chill touches weren’t even close to enough to cool the heat raging beneath Rashed’s skin, the heat that so desperately wanted to be doused.

To be sated.

Oh, God, it was maddening. She was his for the taking, for the feasting, and he was starved. Her small, almost delicate, hands clawed at him and he gasped, the small pain mating feverishly with the greater pleasure. That was how he wanted her, weak and pliant beneath his hands, as frantic for his touch as he was for her feel. It seemed that no matter how he slid his hands over her cool skin, he wanted more.

It positively inflamed him.

She whimpered and moaned, writhing against him and the dark vampire groaned deeply. Right now, yes, now. Rashed’s hands hooked first around her jeans, dragging them the rest of the way down and baring her cold, silken flesh to him. ”My eyes, look in my eyes.” His words were clipped and commanding, harsh and sharp as well, to cut through the haze he’d so ruthlessly wanted her under.

He wanted her eyes on his when he did this though, wanted to watch them go wide and blind. Again. Rashed wanted her eyes to clear, Dye to see him, and then he wanted to send them both spiraling. Fingers grappled again, this time with his own jeans, and he wrenched them down. Resting himself right on the edge, tormenting her mercilessly, his hand gripped her chin and tipped it up. ”Look at me.”

He had said something, not in her mind this time, not as another faceless voice, but aloud. She had to fight to hear, climbing out of a mindless swirl of sensations and colors to drag herself back to the surface. The loss of her lat lingering strips of clothing came as a slow realization. When it dawned completely a shock of embarrassment and fear threatened to drive back the beast and let her fractured mind back into control. She shut her eyes tight as modesty rained back her lust, driving home what she was allowing to happen.

Who was she fooling? Allowing it? No, she wanted it, as badly as he did. But, even the jagged demand in Rashed’s voice didn’t bring Dianna into opening her eyes. She’d be lost, she knew she’d be lost completely if she looked into those glowing eye again. The sound sliced even deeper through the fog that had chased away her fear, bringing it sharply back to the forefront of her mind, the pins and needles of her broken mind stabbing mercilessly at her temple as her black monster raged at her for caging it and chaining it down.

Heat replaced the cold brush of the frozen air that had assaulted her woman’s heat, velvet and fire that made her gasp in shock as her eyes snapped open. She stared unseeingly for what seemed hours, suddenly feeling too fragile, too small, to vulnerable, too out of control, too lost, too hot.

And she loved it.

The spell was broken as Rashed took her chin and tilted her head back, forcing her to loose herself in the vivid pools of ocean water that glowed down at her with an otherworldly light. With in them his domination and authority where as clear and perfect as finely crafted diamonds, his control over the situation, his sway over her, was complete in every way. Dianna couldn’t fight him to safe her life, not now, now that she had realized she had no choice in the matter. She may was well have been bought and paid for, may as well have belonged to him from the moment she had laid eyes on him at the club.

How foolish had she been?

Alarm raced wildly through her blood, glowed luridly in her eyes as she swallowed down a whimper. Her mouth opened to say something, but her mind went blank, leaving nothing more than a breath of air to escape her.

She wanted to beg, to plead, to pull his mouth back down over hers and block out everything. To be lost in that haze, to be lost in that fog, to make the pain go away and have nothing but the pleasure again… she’d follow him to hell and back for that.