A harsh gust whips his hair around his face, and the sunlight beating on his fair skin whips around with the leaves above him. Stifled pants fill the blazing air as he sprints deeper into the forest. His brain urges him to look back, but his body forces him forward on instinct. Approaching the dried remnants of a creek, he slows to a halt behind a wide oak tree, pressing his back against the rough trunk. His adrenaline starts to fade, replaced with aching leg muscles and the subtle taste of the blood in his dry throat. Then, from behind, a twig snaps, and his heart races again. He holds his breath, bracing himself as the crunching leaves behind him grow louder and louder.

"Psst! Ranger, it's me, Levern!" Her soft tone is like cool water washing over his entire body.

He comes around and is pained when he sees that the enemy nearly claimed her eye. She harbors a wound down the middle of the right one. He doesn't know it will heal within the hour. Therefore anger needlessly burns in his heart.

"Could you stop that? I feel what you feel, remember?" Levern's hip pops out, and she places a hand on it.

Ranger swallows as he takes in her beauty. She's always different at night, and now he knows why. Levern is not human, not entirely, at least.

He did forget. In his defense, he's never been bonded to an otherworldly being like Levern before tonight. Being only her friend is all he knows.

"So, why exactly are we fated together again," he says, still in a state of disbelief.

She brings her hands together, picking at her cuticles nervously before answering, "I turned you into a vampire, and well, fate did the rest!"

"What?!" His world is quaking.

Levern sighs heavily, "I'm half-human and half-vampire," she goes on after inhaling deeply, "we are called Dhampirs."

"A little while ago, a mad vampire sent out his minions to kill me," she throws her hands down suddenly in exasperation, "but you just had to play I'm-a-shield with the stupid guy's sword end, didn't you! They killed you," she gulps dryly.

With tears that hurt him because they exist, she continues, "I couldn't let you die because of me, so I turned you," she ends with a shrug and a smile.

"So, I'm half and half too?" Ranger is holding hope in his heart that the answer is yes.

"No," she answers bluntly.

The tired man has no words to explain his feelings. A war between gratefulness and anger and fear rages relentlessly inside him. Even though the forest is alive with the sound of nocturnal life, Ranger hears nothing but the voices of alarm within him.

"Ranger," he looks up to Levern, who wraps her arms around his shoulders, "you're immortal now. Sure, you will miss the sun at first, but if you live long enough and it will touch you once again. As for blood," her eyes turn blue, "start with me."

Levern's nail enlarges, and she cuts deeply into her neck. The allure is beyond anything he ever desired. There's no need to hold back, and he embeds his new white fangs into her medium-soft tone skin. A moment later, they're sinking onto the ground, he moans, and she slightly whimpers.

Her blood is sweet and out of this world. Ranger doesn't even know it yet, but her blood is special. It is extra good and coveted by many. That is why Fate bonded her to him. He is her Knight.

Ranger pulls away and meets Levern's hazy blue eyes, "I'm hurting you?"

"Not like you would a pure human or another vampire. Kind of why Dhampirs are low in numbers," she weakly states.

"What do you mean?" He furrows his brows in confusion.

She stumbles to get up but manages it. Ranger gets up to steady her, "I'll explain later, for now, I'm leaving you," Levern grabs hold of his head and cocks it to the side, then she grabs some of her blood and writes a spell.

"What do you mean, leaving?" In the back of his mind is a voice telling him to stop asking so many questions. He should trust her.

"Those men aren't dead. I have to kill them. You need to get home and stay there until nightfall tomorrow," a reassuring smile is cast upon her face.

He grabs hold of her wrist before she can walk away, "Stay! We'll go after them together. I won't let you go alone!"

It doesn't take but one simple maneuver to get out of his grasps, and she sighs with conviction, "Ranger, I'll be fine, and it wouldn't be the first time I defeated such merry men," without further explanation, she whizzes beyond his reach.

Ranger reluctantly starts for home. Every fiber of his being tells him to go with her, but he has to respect her. He has to believe in her.

Nightfall the next day arrives soon enough. He gets changed and heads for his door only to open and find Levern slumped against it. She falls into his room, covered in blood. His heart starts to race, and his panic starts to set in.

He rushes her to his bed and starts taking her clothes off. Ranger is only looking for wounds, so he doesn't go as far as to take her underwear off. He wouldn't survive that anyway. Once he knows she's free of any, he drapes her with his bedsheet.

Within minutes she starts to stir. Levern's eyes flutter open, and she only kicks him off the bed. His cheeks roar alive, realizing that she might freak out of being undressed.

"Idiot, I knocked all day! How is it chivalry to let a girl sleep outside?!" She gives him a tongue out and snuggles into her sheets better.

"Sorry," he begins to laugh from the floor.

"Come up here and be with me," it's a direct order, but not really.

Ranger was a twenty-one and a busboy from the Windy City. Levern has been with him since middle school, and she still is his best friend. He has loved her secretly all his life. Last night he was going to ask her out, but then the frightful creatures of the night came and dragged her away. Without thinking about it, he ran after them, and even while human, defeated many to get her back. He thought they were home free, but then one of them lunged for Levern. Not a second thought later, he was shielding her with his body.

All those events led to this moment. The moment Ranger has always wanted. A moment with Levern by his side as more than just friends.

"You still haven't asked me out, by the way," her voice is magic.

Ranger's cheeks blare even brighter than before, "Wil-will you?"

Levern starts to convulse in laughter, "Pretty much a sealed deal now, boy."

They fall asleep together for a while longer. Then both awaken to allow Ranger to feast. This night turns to days and then weeks. Those weeks turn into months. Then one day, it's centuries later, and both laugh at the memory of busboy Ranger.

Both are royal rulers of the Underworld. Still in love and fated together.