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Guarding yourself from the love of another
Left you with nothing tonight
Why does it sound like the devil is laughing
Leaving me haunted tonight
You did decide-
Disturbed, Guarded



Jean-Claude let out a weary sigh as his shoulders slumped and he sat on his bed, replaying the night’s events in his head for the umpteenth time.


It had all happened so fast. It was still…surreal, almost unreal to him, somehow. He almost couldn’t believe it had happened. He wasn’t sure whether to feel elation or despair.


Richard had all but burst in through his door, holding her dying form in his strong arms, frantic with terror and worry. Upon seeing her condition, the vampire had motioned him to his room without a word and asked him to lay her out on his bed, across the white sheets, her black curls fanning out around her, cascading over the pillows.

He had pulled the black robe back from her body, and was shocked to see that she was naked. He had swallowed thickly, in spite of himself, feeling his body respond to her. She was even more beautiful than he had imagined.


She had been naked in his arms for a few glorious moments. He had taken her blood, tasted it for the first time. It was sweet, and the power in it had astounded him. He’d felt it enter his veins in an almost overwhelming rush after his lips locked around her delicate wrist. For a few breathless, exhilarating moments, their heartbeats had been synchronized, a perfect rhythm. And he had placed the third mark upon her, and was one step closer to making her his once and for all.


He had brushed the curls back from her lovely face, inhaling her natural fragrance. He could feel the life slipping from her as the lamia’s poison had pumped through her body. With the placing of the third mark, he felt the poison dispel from her bloodstream, and she recovered, much to his relief. He had feared that he had been too late to save her.

In a ceremonial gesture, one of his servants gave him a small golden dagger and he sliced her wrist open and took her blood, wrapping her in his aura of power and placing the third mark on her. He’d felt her heartbeat skitter and stop in a rapid staccato across her ribcage, then finally regulate itself when the poison was finally purged from her body, the powers of the mark purifying her bloodstream as his power burned the deadly cocktail of hemotoxins and cardiotoxins from her veins and arteries. His hand had reached up to touch her breasts, almost unconsciously. In that moment, the world had vanished. He didn’t notice there was anyone else in the room. There was only him, her, and their hearts beating in unison.


He had grown to love her. It was ironic, really. He swore he’d never fall in love again, not after Asher and the loss of their beloved Julianna. Yet somehow it had happened.

He didn’t know why, nor could he fully explain it, but it was love. He could no longer deny it. He had tried, but as he had held her in his arms for the first time, he knew that he loved her.

For over four centuries, he had been the consummate ladies’ man the debonair womanizer that could have made Casanova himself envious. No woman could resist him. They all but fell at his feet, eager to fulfill his every whim.

He always thought of her bright, bold eyes, staring back at him without fear, as if she were daring him, challenging him, taunting him. He always thought about how soft her hair was, how her scent always intoxicated him, how her voice would always make his pulse quicken.

She always remained just out of his reach, and he remembered that old adage where you always wanted what you could not have the most.

He had never fully understood it’s meaning, nor believed in it, until now. He wanted her so badly that he could barely contain his desire. He craved her touch more than that of any woman, even Belle Morte, and she had been desire personified.

The more she turned him down, the more he wanted her. It was a maddening paradox. He had never experienced unrequited love…usually it was the other way around, when men and women alike would gaze at him in blind adoration because he was so hauntingly beautiful.

When the object of his affection had awoken, she had been less than grateful. She had cursed his name and called him a bastard, among other things. She had threatened to kill him repeatedly. Of course, her reaction had hardly surprised him, but the remarks had wounded him, even though his expression did not show it.

Her scent still clung to the sheets. He would be almost reluctant to have them washed for fear of losing that scent. He hoped that it wouldn’t be the only time that her scent would cling to his sheets, permeate them like a perfume.


Perhaps someday she would willing accept his touch, his love, open up and trust him, and see the man behind the “monster”. He hoped that she would grow to accept the marks, and he would gain her trust, and her love. She would come to see his marks as a blessing instead of a curse.

In the meantime, he would sleep the day away where she had lain, wrapped in her scent and her memory, and he would awaken to it.


Fin