The screaming stopped. It'd become distant in the end. And there's a guiding trail of blood laying a dismal path through the narrow shelving.

With a heavy heart, Reid tracks the trail, and he's keenly aware that he's moving farther away from the others with every creaking step he takes. This is probably a trap. But Colby's in danger, and every second is precious.

Plus, Reid has Hannah's gun. He hadn't taken her only weapon purposefully; he ran without a second thought once he knew Hannah was safe. Well, safe, and acting a tad insane, but small victories. He wishes he had a chance to give a heads-up to Kenneth that Hannah's not herself; she called him a vampire in a strange, cold tone, but he can't detour. There's a faint sensation of a vampire near, and he deeply worries for Colby.

This area of the building is what he considers to be the true auction house. His mother would spend most of her days and nights here, cataloguing and slumped over the table, having fallen asleep when she pushed herself too hard. The very table that her killer had just stomped over.

Reid's grip on the gun shakes. He's never felt such rage as he did when he told Kenneth to shoot. He hadn't thought of the repercussions; the only thing he wanted was to see Azrael take his last agonizing breaths.

The smears of blood lead between narrow shelves that have unopened boxes taped and uncategorized, and Reid knows instantly where this carnage will lead. There's a side room with frosted glass doors where the larger objects of his mother's collection are kept. He supposes it's not his mother's anymore; Gabriel has employed someone else to keep the business afloat, but Reid thinks of it as hers anyway.

The doors have been left slightly ajar, and the room beyond is lit dimly by a pair of windows on the far wall, giving a view of the courtyard below with a fountain that Kenneth tossed him into when they were teens, and Reid had bothered the man into red-faced anger. Through the shadowed threshold, Reid can see streams of moonlight dancing across the dark planks of the floor. The emergency lights flicker with a dim red glow.

Moving inside. Reid holds the pistol at the ready. He tries to recall Kenneth's stern instructions on using a gun. Pulling the trigger and aiming isn't the problem; Reid can hit a target, but keeping the weapon as an extension of his arm and not a burden is where he has difficulty. He knows it's there, and he's aware of the weight, and both of those things make holding a gun terribly awkward. Unlike Kenneth, who's always dealt with guns like he was born holding one while expelled from the womb.

There's muffled crying.

Hurrying, Reid's footfalls creak, but he can't do much about that. He moves without giving a sparing glance to the pair of giant shields with tribal patterns upon dais' to keep them standing upright, man-sized bronze statues, and expressive busts upon glassed platforms. He knows there are many more treasures, as his mother would say, that await consideration in the darkness.

The sensation of the vampire grows more prominent.

Reaching a curve in the makeshift pathway between artifacts, there's a draft from a vent above, and Reid's drenched clothes hold the chill. He shivers.

"Colby," Reid whispers, chancing being heard by whoever had taken the poor girl.

The muted crying grows louder.

Passing a golden statue of a warrior with a blade held skyward, Reid finally sets eyes on Colby. Her amber gaze is blown wide in terror, and for good reason, there's a hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her screams.

The creature has an arm around Colby's middle, keeping her still, and the face of a beautiful woman: flawless black hair with cascading curls, charcoal eyes, and deceptively sun-kissed skin. She looks no different than the other vampires Reid's seen during his lifetime, stunning in her tight crimson dress that rises just high enough on her thighs to draw the eye. She wears no mask, as it's been tossed to the floor at their feet. Blood drips from her cupid's bow lips.

The vampire pouts. "It's been so difficult to isolate you."

"Let her go," Reid orders, trying for authority, which he'd somehow tapped into in that hallway with the pair of vampires, but it falls short. The vampire laughs. And despite the shake in his fingers, Reid keeps the gun pointed at her. He can't risk taking a shot with Colby so close. He's not Kenneth.

"I could do that," the vampire drawls. "I would be willing to make a deal." She keeps her manicured fingers atop Colby's mouth. There's a savage bite that beads blood from Colby's pale, heaving throat. "Toss your gun, and I'll let her go."

"You first," Reid growls. He's feeling dizzy. The vampire has ordered nothing from him, yet he's held captive by her predatory gaze.

The vampire giggles. "Nice try, pet. The gun, and then I let the girl go. At the same time. No tricks."

"Fine. Count of three?"

"Yes."

"One," Reid says.

This is the worst time to feel feverish, but he's suddenly molten. The urge to escape this vampire's gaze is overwhelming, but at the same time, he wants to remain and rot in its venom.

"Two." Reid's going to throw the gun.

Reid can't think of a way out of this. Talking. He's good at talking his way out of things, but there's not enough time. He's going to die, and Kenneth's going to kill him.

The vampire growls, "Three."

The creature shoves Colby, stumbling forward at the same moment. Reid tosses the gun, and the sound of it clattering into the darkness is almost lost beneath the loud sobs Colby is letting loose now that she no longer has a hand over her mouth.

Colby collides with Reid's front, and he stumbles, catching her.

But before Reid can hope to calm her trembling form, the vampire is rushing them.

"Run!" Reid shoves Colby towards the doors.

Colby doesn't need to be told twice, taking off at a sprint. To lead the vampire away from the girl, Reid runs in the opposite direction, further into the red-hued darkness, the emergency lights flickering overhead.

And he doesn't get far.

Reid's hit his head plenty. He was a clumsy kid and a mouthy teenager, so when a hard form strikes his back, he has the wherewithal to turn his face seconds before impact, and his cheek takes the brunt instead of his nose. Nevertheless, gasping pain shoots up his face, settling around his eye and throbbing his teeth.

The bodyweight on his lower back makes it impossible to rise as he yearns. The cruel fingers fisting in his hair and yanking his head, forcing his neck to arch, are even more immobilizing.

Bony knees dig into his waist. A breath against his ear has him gritting his teeth. "Kenneth Rainer killed my Nathaniel."

His head burns with agony, and Reid clutches at the vampire's fingers in his hair. He keeps pressure because that's all he can do, and it helps quell the rising panic his brain is giving him, screaming for him to fight before he's literally scalped.

Reid pants, "I care, why?"

The pain lets up. "Two hundred years we were together, and your mage lover beheaded him! Left him by the pier like he was nothing. He was one of Azrael's lieutenants. Magnificent. And now he's a rotting corpse!" Her words quake with fury, and then there's a wet tongue making a shivering trail over Reid's jugular, assumably pulsing with his adrenaline and the unnatural curve his neck is forced to keep.

Lieutenant? The thought that Azrael has a military sect under his rule is more than disconcerting. Reid grimaces as the tongue traces his ear. "Take that up with him."

She laughs at that. "I'm no fool. He'd have my head. But you're so close to turning, aren't you? I can smell the want clinging to you, pet."

Reid's quite disgruntled that his cheeks are flushing and the floor he's pinned to is becoming uncomfortable quickly. Despite his throbbing cheek, he's shamefully aroused. The creature's voice is smooth and silken. Her warmth against his back is settled in such a way that her short dress must be high around her hips. There's heated breath ghosting his neck, foreshadowing what's to come.

Resolve cracking, Reid's lashes flutter, and he chokes, "Don't..."

"I'll take his lover," she purrs. "An eye for an eye, as they say."

Reid howls with laughter. He's losing his mind. "I'm not his lover!"

The vampire bites his neck.

This isn't like the other times he's been bitten for punishment by his father; the discomfort and humiliation were enough to deter even him from his ways. For a little while, at least. But this is a world apart.

There's pain that has him gasping and his gaze watering, and then there's a pulling sensation from parted lips, and Reid's whimpering a soft sigh, vision blurring, body shuddering with so much ecstasy he can't contain it, escaping in faint moans and sobs of pleasure. He's never experienced something so all-consuming.

Reid forgets why he's here.

The hand in his hair becomes a palm against his searing forehead, holding his head just so, then slipping down and covering his eyes, and he drowns in darkness. The incredible lips pull away, and he chokes on a moan as they move to hover against his ear. "You're ready. I could give you my blood and make you mine, and it would take so little. Would you like that, pet?"

Reid can't speak, nodding. He's ashamed for giving in so quickly. He knows his face is flushed a remarkable crimson. His cheek throbs with what will probably be a nasty bruise near his eye. The bite has started to hurt.

The vampire laughs lowly. She shifts her hips and, with unmatched strength, turns him onto his back. Reid would fight. He'll argue adamantly that he would have given her a good knock to her pretty jaw and put up some resistance, but he suddenly feels like he's on the boundary of death, writhing and feverish. She's a blur above, an angel of death, his daydream moments before the heat finally burns him from within.

When the creature settles her weight back down with a sultry smile, she could break a vow of celibacy in a heartbeat. Oh, he's in trouble. He's taken no such vow. Even if he's been abstinent for a long, long, long time. Since quitting the pills, finding dalliances has been a lot harder while sober. That's what he tells himself anyway.

The thought of Kenenth coming to rescue him and instead finding him in a very precarious situation with a vampire seductress who isn't keen on taking no for an answer is both horrifying and hilarious.

Reid laughs, and the deranged sound has the vampire tipping her head curiously.

Reid's breathing stutters when hands splay over his chest, and she sways her hips deliciously. His body is reacting with residual ecstasy from the bite, and despite his hatred for this creature, her beauty cannot be denied. She's dangerous, just as her crimson-sheen lips and sharp fangs dripping with his blood are. He might be dizzy and having a hard time gasping for the simplest of thoughts...

But he's no pet.

With a surge of anger with which he's not familiar, Reid's fingers are in her hair before she can react, yanking her close. "I'd never take blood from a vampire so disgustingly pathetic." The air thickens. "If your lover deserved to live, then he wouldn't have lost."

He holds her widening eyes, and Reid knows that even when she parts her bloody lips, she'll stay quiet because the flame of tension between them, stoked by the power within her, is nothing compared to his. She was fully human before turning. He can't explain how, but he knows.

Reid should shove her off, but the dark whispers in his mind tell him to take her. He listens and drags his attacker close, his fingers violently fisting her hair. He kisses her then, tasting his own blood, and is surprised that it's no longer metallic but honeyed.

She chokes, gasps, and tries to catch her breath, but he doesn't let her go. Even though she could easily oppose him, she's pliant to his fingers, digging into her thigh and sliding under her dress. She whines sweetly. There's a smell in the air—heady and addicting. Lust and fear coalesce.

Then, there's a hand curled around his wrist, dragging his fingers from the tresses of hair they'd been holding tight, and in seconds, both Reid's hands are pined beside his head, leaving him heaving and trying to figure out what just happened.

The vampire looks down at him with teary eyes, red-faced, and her soft hair brushes his aching cheek. "I've never..." Her moan verges on a growl. "When you turn, you'll be a god. Take my blood. I'll bow to you."

She's making her argument very difficult to deny, taking his hands and placing them on her bare, supple thighs, gripping his fingers and grinding in such a way that he's choking on breath, enraptured by the sight of her rosy lips parting with soft pants. "I'll bend for you. Eternity, just the two of us—I'll be yours. My king. My master."

She's maniac. Erratic. Sexy. She could call him a dirty little squirrel for all he cares, and he'd still be rocking against her, chasing her friction. Reid thought he had lost his mind before, but when her lips return to his neck, licking and sucking, he would promise anything. He's sobbing with such powerful relief; he didn't know it was possible to achieve this much sensation.

Then his dark muse is gone, cruelly dragged off him like she weighs nothing. Reid's eyes fly open, not realizing he'd shut them. His vision blurs with tears. He shakes violently, the forced ecstasy slipping away, his body rejecting its lack, his limbs trembling with intense pain. He stiffens until the waves of pain pass.

There's a gentle hand on his shoulder, lifting him upright. Reid groans with a dull wave of pain that shudders through him. His gaze falls to the dress shoes covered in blood and slowly rises until he's setting eyes on familiar wide shoulders, having shucked the jacket that had kept them contained. Staring back are brown eyes full of worry.

Wearily Reid takes the offered hand. "Lucas..." Dragged to his feet, Reid grimaces. "Thanks." He touches his neck gingerly; the bite is aching. "I think."

"Don't thank me," Lucas says grimly. "Not over yet." He looks at the vampire not far away, near a glass display. She's on her feet, looking flawless except for the blood dripping from her face, but even then, Reid can't find it in himself to be disgusted.

The vampire has lost her sultriness, and now she's a feline, swaying, her body poised to strike. "He's mine, mage."

Reid's hindbrain gives him a surge of ardour to resist. His stupid genetics very much want to be hers, but his rational brain wants nothing more than to see her dead, so he whispers, "Kill her, Lucas. Quickly, before she gets in our heads."

Before Lucas can oblige, the vampire doesn't speak like Reid was bracing for; she attacks.

The creature has spindly arms and long legs, clawing and fangs clacking as she tries for Lucas's neck instantly. It's no wonder she's survived for two hundred years; she knows her strengths, which are to overwhelm her opponent and have them submit to her bite. She didn't try entrancement because Reid had already beaten her, and she wouldn't risk him doing it again.

Although she's never fought Lucas before, her fatal mistake is daring to match him in strength. His eyes glow with magic. He seizes the front of her dress, holds her at length like an angry cat, and merely tosses her. A display shatters on impact. A priceless vase turns into pieces of jagged pottery sliding across the glossy wood floor.

Reid laughs, and Lucas gives him a fleeting glance that's hard to decipher—just that it's close to a grin. There's something exhilarating in witnessing a man, a human, make creatures that believe themselves above into nothing more than an object to be brushed aside.

Shoved backward a few steps away from the shattered glass by Lucas's splayed hand, the man's knuckles bleeding from the early scrap, Reid's still laughing when he asks, "Do you only use your magic to toss people?"

Lucas looks sheepish. "It's effective."

"Kenneth only makes fire," Reid says, smiling, his cheek throbbing. "This is a lot more fun!" He frowns at the sight of the creature rousing. "Hurry, throw her again, through a window, preferably."

The vampire's on her feet with the fluid quickness of a monster that's made to hunt, but before she can try whatever thought is flickering behind her charcoal eyes, dilated so dark they're black, Lucas's fist is there to greet her. The strength behind the man's punch, enhanced by the magic settling an otherworldly vibrancy in his brown eyes, would have knocked the head clean off a weaker person.

But this creature isn't weak; far from it, she's old and powerful. The she-vampire doesn't stop fighting even when she's thrown to the ground atop jagged glass that crunches beneath Lucas's prim dress shoes, and before she can fully bare her fangs, she's pinned down by Lucas's hand fisting her torn dress.

She growls. A fist meets her face. She shrieks. Another time, blood sprays. She gurgles. The knuckles are there to quiet them.

Lucas doesn't stop.

There are out-of-body experiences, but witnessing this is whatever is considered the opposite, and Reid has never been more present. He's an expert on the art of floating high; he spent years up there, chasing whatever he thought he'd find so lost. Right now, his feet are firmly planted on the ground, and he's watching Lucas beat a two-hundred-year-old vampire to death.

Burning can be very effective, he's heard. But the head is what you want to destroy to make sure a vampire doesn't get back up. Reid doesn't know why; he only knows that it's effective.

And the creature that had only moments ago held him down and promised him eternity is unrecognizable and deathly silent.

"Lucas," Reid says, but his voice does little to rouse the man, who punches again and again.

Dangerous, Kenneth had warned vehemently, stay away from Lucas. The blood spray that strikes Reid's pants and dissolves into the drenched fabric is evidence of that irrefutable truth.

But there's no flame of excitement burning behind Lucas's eyes like Reid's seen many times in Kenneth's green gaze during a fight. Lucas's eyes are distant. Not crazed. Reid felt that same dissociation, and oh, how it drove his father mad to not get the reaction he wanted when Reid should have been pleading and sobbing. There are ways a mind protects itself by shutting down so it doesn't break from the horror it's undergoing.

Shoes crunching glass, Reid reaches out with the intention to grab Lucas's arm on its next downswing, but then his vision bursts white with the painful crack that erupts across his face.

He's fallen on his ass, fortuitously missing the glass, when Lucas rears around, and to Reid's relief, the man's gaze is much more alive, his brown eyes warm with concern.

"Hell," Lucas breathes. He lays his palms on Reid's cheeks, wincing at whatever he sees. "Shit, your nose..."

"Is fucked," Reid finishes, nasally, because Lucas is pinching his nostrils to stop the flow of blood. He can't help laughing at the silliness in his voice, and Lucas tries to fight a smile, but then he's laughing as well. 

The situation is absurd: blood covering them, glass beneath their feet, and they're laughing.

Laughter petering, Lucas's gaze flickers to Reid's neck. "She got you good, huh? Feeling light-headed?"

"From your elbow getting intimate with my face, I feel more than light-headed." Reid snickers, and his head lulls. "I was going to let her."

Lucas frowns. "Kill you?" He grabs Reid's arms and, with a show of strength, drags Reid's dead weight, busy clutching his bleeding nose, behind a nearby display for some semblance of cover.

Settling his back against the glass, Reid sighs wistfully. "I was going to let her have her wicked way."

"A pretty face worth dying for?"

"Maybe," Reid says, pouting at Lucas's soft look of disapproval. He perks up. "Is she dead?"

"I don't know. Probably. Either way, she's definitely not moving anytime soon."

Lucas's bulk is blocking the grisly view that is the vampire's body, and he shifts to keep it so when Reid tries to capture a cursory peek. "You look creepy smiling like that."

Reid frowns. "She's a vampire."

"Death isn't something to smile over."

Mocking Lucas's more resonant voice, Reid teases, "Death isn't something to smile over." He scowls. "I didn't know you were a pacifist. When do you find time between beating people to death with those giant fists of yours?"

Lucas frowns. He must have caught the slight edge in Reid's voice. "I don't smile afterward."

"Only during," Reid remarks, nonsensically.

"This'll be a good time to shut up," Lucas says darkly.

Reid does just that, because when you're told to shut up by a blood-covered brute, even a man who revels in the art of pushing listens. And the way Lucas's fingers rise to clutch Reid's jaw and dig deep enough to cause hurt is suddenly very hard to ignore.

For a silent stretch of time, Lucas gentles his touch and tips Reid's face this way and that, brown eyes evaluating injuries.

Reid thinks the man's doing so just to keep their contact close, but he allows himself to be dotted over because it's nice. He's not used to touching without violence. Kenneth's displays of affection usually leave Reid bruised. The only person who was ever gentle with him was his mother.

Despite the early reprimand, Reid smiles, and it only grows when Lucas returns the gesture with a gentle quirk of his lips.

Then Lucas pats Reid's aching face gently and declares, "I'm no doctor; it looks like you'll live to annoy another day." His smile falters. They're close. "Wanna agree to tell Kane the vampire did this? I don't want to keep one eye open when I sleep for the rest of my days. He's insane."

Kenneth. Reid startles. "He's—'

"He's good. Don't worry. Real badass, barely a scratch. Got that prissy swagger and everything. Fuckin' needs a goodhearted knockin' to bring him down a peg." Eyebrows furrowing, Lucas looks over his shoulder and squints into the red-hued darkness. "He was right behind me."

Reid doesn't answer; he can't, because when Lucas looked away, his palm on Reid's cheek had shifted ever so subtly. The pad of a calloused thumb rests close to the edge of his lips, and there's wetness to Lucas's hands—blood from the gnarly splits of his knuckles—but also stickiness against Reid's skin that isn't human; it's vampiric.

There's singing in Reid's mind that starts low and rises until it's a twisted, all-consuming melody that sirens his lips to part.

Lucas's gaze snaps away from the darkness at the first swipe of a tongue across his blood-stained fingers. His fingers, soaked with blood, clutch Reid's jaw, hurting and preventing Reid from giving in to the urge to lick and take.

"Reid," Lucas warns, but there's a gruff heat in his timbered tone that does little to snuff the want in Reid's mind.

"Lucas," Reid whispers, lowly and purposefully. He hunts the dilation that overtakes Lucas's brown eyes when his name is uttered like that.

The fingers holding Reid's jaw don't let up, and Lucas says sternly, "You have to control yourself."

Thought's sharp, breath calm, despite the rapid beat of his heart, Reid runs his tongue along his bottom lip, purposefully slow and provocative, and an otherwordly glow takes Lucas's steely gaze. "I don't want to," he whispers darkly.

He likes giving in. He always has. He doesn't want to fight it.