"Proposition 42: Vampire Identification and Registration"

Mercy Battle’s biography had a very distinct branching point: one for a white audience, the other for a minority / black audience. It would only be fitting: even in an age where vampires were known to be real, there was still a fair amount of discord between the races.

The origin story was the same – an impoverished background, raised by a grandmother. Academic excellence that caught the eye of Senator Wells. Then the adoption.

White media outlets were split on their feelings of the adoption: liberal leanings thought it a wonderful thing, an opportunity for those less fortunate, while more conservative reports speculated that it was cheap publicity, or, at the worst, there was something unseemly about their relationship. Surprisingly enough, the conservative reports in both minority and white media shared the same sentiment. Either Mercy Battle had an illicit relationship with Senator Wells, or someone in her family did. The most outrageous (and blatantly untrue – yet it still persisted) reports stated that she was a love child of Senator Wells.

Black media outlets, however, were more honest. In one candid interview, given a decade back, the full story was there. The interview never made it out of the small (even by independent standards) magazine, and was something that Mercy herself never referred to. Her reasoning was simple: she didn’t see the need to give her story an infinite amount of times to be interpreted an infinite amount of ways. As far as she was concerned, this interview was the gospel truth, and all else was hyperbole, piled on by those around her. After this interview would be when Mercy developed the reputation for being incredibly close-mouthed. The only thing she freely spoke about was politics. She didn’t speculate on her personal life or the personal lives of others, and while it may have seemed off-putting, downright unsociable at times, it was key to her developing her own followers. Because of that attitude, people knew that Mercy only cared about politics – and that she wasn’t going to lie, cheat, or steal to get her word out there.

Her story really was simple. Her father and mother had gotten together when they were far too young and far too in love. Her father died when she was a baby, and her mother soon after. She was raised by a strict grandmother, and excelled in school. When Senator Wells was undergoing his second election campaign, needing urban votes, he became attached to quite a few urban projects and schools. Mercy had won a debate contest where Senator Wells was the special judge / guest. So impressed by her acumen at such a young age (and because she was around the same age of his actual daughter), he’d become more invested in her life, promising her a full ride to college if she graduated at the top of her high school class.

Which, of course she did.

When her grandmother, her only surviving family member, passed, Senator Wells had taken pity on the bereaved girl, and adopted her. Out of respect to the guiding light in her life, and because of the sheer nature of her life to get to where she was now, she kept her (very apt) family name.

And that was that.

For the most part.

__

In her imagination, he had taken her to the heights of pleasure over and over. Sometimes he would deny her release, just to hear the way she begged for him, other times he was painfully rough, taking her pleasure from her body and delighting in the way that she simply melted.

So, despite the tensions of the day, Mercy had slept well – and had done the unimaginable.

Turned her phone off.

Because she was a far-sighted woman, the moment she’d seen Big Daddy up North, she’d put in a request for time off. It was granted without a second thought 30 minutes later. Though she largely worked for herself (and was in the midst of running for a city position), she still had others that depended on her, and those that she depended on. Though it would have come as no small surprise that she was taking time off, she still wanted to go through the appropriate channels to ensure that if, for some reason, if it were to come up in an audit, everything would be in place.

More realistically, being back at home meant that she was on the clock. Constantly. Big Daddy would start calling shortly, she was sure of it. And she was running a massive risk by spending this day in silence.

Rolling onto her back, her panties still tangled round her legs from last night, she sighed. Ran her hands over her face. She’d call him later; explain (within reason) what happened last night. Present him with a battle plan, and, to be polite, remind him yet again that Jessica was a grown woman, and that the best offense was a good defense. He’d never disown his own flesh and blood – no matter how much he ranted and raved over it. Jessie was his little princess; his words were more out of hurt than anything else. Given time, they’d figure it out.

No, it was Mercy’s position that was far more tenuous. Things had been…strained in the last few years. Senator Wells was an old fashioned conservative that spoke plainly and didn’t believe in referring to vampires as human. Mercy, on the other hand, was moderate – and the better politician because of it. Somewhere along the line, she’d begun to sense that he resented her for it. The pupil surpassing the teacher. After all, the only thing he really had was his legacy, which had taken a drubbing within the last few years. Political tides and tides change, and many of his original draconian reforms were chipped away at, or if not flat out abolished by one liberal session after another. It was only within the last year or so that the conservatives had begun to gain traction, and that was largely in part due to Mercy. And not simply because she was Senator Wells’s protégé, but because she knew how to speak to people. Because she still believed in grassroot politics. Because she was new and young and approachable and reasonable.

Biting her lower lip, she let her fingers trace over the curved plane of her stomach. It was back again, the fine script running from her navel to the top of her mound, a whispered caress of a lover down her body.

She had the mark since she was born – and it came and went of its own volition. At first blush, it would slowly reappear on her skin, seeming all the world a birthmark, a blotch of café-au-lait skin against her deeper sepia. Then the words (at least she assumed that they were words) would form, carving themselves out into the most beautiful script she’d ever seen. Years with it had taught her to be intrigued by it, love it, hate it, then think nothing of it as it ghosted in and out of her life. With a wry smile, she pressed her fingers to it. It’d meant no midriff bearing outfits when they were in style, a fact that teenaged Mercy had hated with a vengeance. Now, it was like her little secret, coming and going of its own volition. She couldn’t pinpoint if it was connected to her cycle or something like that; it was on its own timetable. But she’d never felt it grow warm, put down roots throughout her body and simply ensnare her like she had the other night. If it reacted the same way when she saw him again, at least that would be something.

But for now, she would rest. Get her thoughts together.

__

“Mercy, there’s someone here for you.”

“Mmm?” The reflection of her computer screen turned the lenses of her glasses a pale blue. She was in the midst of writing, the side of her hand stained black with ink. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

Shit. Maybe she was.

“Actually, you know what, I was. Absentminded,” she said with a faint grin, tapping the side of her head. “I’ll finish up here, and get it taken care of.”

And that was how she found herself waiting for a car, Thursday night. The night would find her in gray sweats and an oversized hoodie, and tennis shoes that’d seen far better days. She wasn’t foolish enough to draw attention to herself by being “obviously” in disguise, or by wearing her usual outfit. Nope. She was going all out for comfort. Something, anything, to ease the fluttering in her stomach that was causing her meal not to sit right with her. This was stupid. Why was she getting so hung up on this? This had to be a ploy to get him to give her blessing to the union – one that she frankly didn’t care that much about. Jessie was flighty, a silly little girl. All Mercy had to do was wait.

What did Killian really want with her?

He’d used a power on her, sure. But maybe for what he used on her, she did to him? No: that was impossible. She’d never directly dealt with vampires in such…intimate contact, though she was sure that at some point in her life, she must have run into one or two outside of the political arena. That’s how these things went.

When the towncar arrived, she wordlessly got in. The logical part of her mind was screaming that this could be a trap: at the very worst, he could bite her, drain her. Well, then, that wouldn’t work for him: it’d be seen as a murder. There was no way that it could be seen any other way. He had far too much to lose politically. But what if he used the same touch on her as he had before, and simply bent her to his will? It wouldn’t make a difference: Senator Wells was the one that he really had to convince of the union, and having both daughters suddenly be pro-vampire would only arouse his suspicion and get him to dig his heels in deeper.

It couldn’t be that he was actually interested in her, could it?

He had to have sensed the way her body reacted; she’d read somewhere that vampires could do that. So he must have…oh, God. Her cheeks flushed. He could have known everything that was going on through her body, in her head. That he could have asked her to strip in the middle of the club and service him and she would have, willingly, happily. The thought of it sent her mind reeling – while the curve of her stomach flickered again. Despite everything that was wrong, that had to be wrong, everything in her gut, no, past that, in some secret corner of herself, was pulling him to her. And it wasn’t logical and it wasn’t love and it wasn’t lust. It was as if someone had simply looped an invisible chain around her and attached the other end to him.

Still lost in her thoughts, she mechanically followed the guard into the elevator, dimly realizing that she hadn’t taken note of her surroundings. Stupid, stupid. Too trusting.

But she had to be here for a reason.

Standing in the penthouse, she was alone now. It didn’t frighten her. Anticipation twisted her stomach.

With the most Hollywood-ish Dracula voice he could summon from deep within him, Killian said from just beyond the open door of his dark bedroom, "Good eve-ening."

He hesitated there for a moment, slightly silhouetted by the moonlight that poured into the bed chamber from the open drapes at the distant wall ... then ... he chuckled softly.

"Forgive me, Mercy," he said as he stepped out into the light of the penthouse's main living area, revealing himself to be in a comfortable button up shirt and loose fitting slacks. "The children who used to come around on Hallowe'en to my former residence in Virginia used to love that. Used to say I sounded just like a real Vampire. Imagine that."

He neared Mercy, his gaze fixed to her as he continued, "And yes, my Community partakes of what you might think to be Human holidays. After all, we were all Human once upon a time. Can I get you a drink?"

Killian listened for Mercy's drink request -- or lack thereof -- and turned for the wet bar as he yet continued, "In fact, many in our Community believe that even after being Blooded ... that is our word for transitioning from Human to Vampire, in case you were not aware ... that even after being Blooded, that we are still Human. It is a significant part of our recent argument that we, Vampires, should have the same rights as you, Humans."

He gestured Mercy politely toward an elegant seating area sunken in the main room. A curved couch that could easily seat 10 arced to face yet another similar couch, the pair of them forming what almost looked like the outline of a football missing its tips. In the center of them was a thick, transparent glass table dominated by a display of rare, imported flowers, beside which stood an ice bucket offering a thousand dollar bottle of champagne and two tall flutes.

And beyond the couch, the table, the second couch, and a large space that featured more seating and more tables -- sufficient to make comfortable a cast of party goers should Killian decide to entertain -- were floor to ceiling windows that were in essence the penthouse's entire south facing wall. The cityscape was laid out before them, a million lights of a hundred colors and sized, with the twin ribbons of red and white indicating the freeway traffic that cut the metropolis in two.

"After all," Killian continued his argument, "A young woman has rights, as a child, a teen ... as a young adult. You would never support her being denied her rights for any reason. Yet until just recently, in most of this wonderful country of ours, if she suddenly or finally came to the realization that another woman -- not a man -- made her happy ... made her feel whole ... she could have been denied many of the rights that she had had up until the day of making said decision or realization."

Killian set his drink down of the end of the glass table and checked the temperature of the Champagne bottle, deciding that it wasn't quite ready. "If tomorrow, your sister was Blooded ... should she lose so many -- if not all -- of the rights that you hold so dear yourself, Mercy."

He sat on one of the couches, sipping his drink before finishing, "Did you know that in 64 counties spread across 14 states, polling times for election days are now restricted to from one hour after sunrise to one hour before sunset ... specifically to prevent undeclared Vampires -- what the Press likes to call Vampires who haven't come out of the coffin -- to prevent them from voting?"

Through this entire time, Killian's tone had been polite and informative, not angry or confrontational. Personally, he was satisfied with his own state of rights and abilities. But then, he was a man of money, power, and influence. He rarely if ever found himself being deprived of what he wanted or needed simply due to being a second class citizen.

No, he wasn't trying to push an agenda at this moment, though as Ambassador it was his job to do so when he was beyond the walls of this home. No, he was just curious about Mercy's thinking on the issues about which he'd spoken ... and about how her sister would be affected by such issues. People attitudes about things often changed radically when suddenly those things involved them or their families personally.

Huh.

Who knew that he would have a sense of humor. Her reaction was stilted. Pulling back the hoodie from her face, she actually yawned. In her gray sweats, she looked like a scrawny Rocky Balboa.

“I suppose it’s no different from people’s assumptions on what black people are supposed to sound like.” She spoke with quiet confidence, stepping further into the penthouse. She was used to opulence - now, at least. It would still strike her as utterly ridiculous: a waste of money.

Ah, there was a hook in that bait. And demurely, she let his comment about being human slide. “No, but thank you for offering.”

A few paces forward - but she still appeared to be lingering in the doorway. Jamming her hands into her pockets, she watched and listened to him. Strange. When she’d first met him, she’d been so enamored that her body felt tied to his. Now, there was nothing but a distinct disappointment. It was expected after all: he would have much to gain if his family joined with the Wells’s.

The likelihood of that happening was as high as pigs flying.

“Is this really what you wanted to talk about, Ambassador?” It was a question and a statement, laced with an underlying current of don’t waste my time. And with the use of his title, he clearly wasn’t the only one who had done his research. “If you want my professional opinion, call my office and book a time. It’s no problem for me to accommodate your…unique schedule with prior notice.”

Taking a step back, she pivoted, turning her body half-way to the door. “If that’s all, I’ll be on my way.”

"You are not leaving, Mercy," Killian said with confidence. He stood and began walking slowly across the vast space that separated them as he continued, "You are not leaving, Mercy ... because you want to know ... to know, just as much as I want to know..."

He took a final sip from his tumbler and set it upon a convenient horizontal space as he continued, "You want to know ... what was it that you felt the night in my arms on the dance floor? What was it ... why was it? You felt it. I felt it. And I am not referring to lust ... though ... I felt that as well."

Killian let his gaze lower, taking in the loose fitting outfit that did nothing to highlight the wonderful womanly features of which his memories of that night reminded him now. His lips spread in that devilish smirk that by now was becoming familiar to Mercy. "I feel it now ... that lust ... despite your attempts to hide your beauty from my eyes."

He'd ascended the three steps from the sunken entertainment space by now and was still moving with slow steps toward her. He was now close enough for his influence to begin affecting her, to physically keep her from backing or literally fleeing. And he would use it if he needed to keep her here until he'd spoken what needed to be spoken, though he hoped she would just remain in place voluntarily and hear him out.

"No, not lust," he continued with a suggestive tone that only seemed to verify the lust within. "Something more. You felt it then. You feel it now. I feel it now. There was a link between us. No, not a link. That sounds so ... modern ... contemporary. This was more. This was ... older ... historic ... something from your past ... my past ... our past. No. Not our past ... yours and mine. Perhaps from beyond even our pasts. From our ancestors."

He was now almost within reach of her, with his movement toward her continuing but slowly to almost an imperceptible speed. "We need to know what this is between us. We deserve to know what this is. You ... I ... we must know what this is."

It had been a cheap ploy, but an effective one.

Watching him approach, she kept her hands in her pockets. So he had felt something.

“How do I know this isn’t a trick? It’s common knowledge that vampires can make mere humans do whatever they want. Pretty sure it’s something like that got you to make me dance like that. Anyone who’s ever known me knows that I’ve got two left feet.” Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, as she became all too aware of her breasts rising and falling beneath the baggy hoodie.

“Besides, maybe I’m just hard up. It’s been a while.” Reaching up for her zipper, she slowly tugged it down half-way her chest. Beneath the gray fabric, she was wearing a thin white tank top, despite the chill in the air. The peaks of her nipples pressed against the fabric.

“You’re a handsome man. I’m sure you’re used to causing such a reaction in women. In fact…” She took a playful step back, resting her hand against the frame of the door, “I’m quite sure you’ve had quite the parade of women in and out of here. You lure me into bed under false presences of some silly ‘past’, and it hits the internet not even 5 minutes later. My name in the mud, your party stands to gain quite a bit of ground. Juvenile, but could have been very effective.”

A politician to the end. He’d be able to see right through her, though. Her pulse. The dilation of her pupils. She was doing her best to use her logic to keep on top of the situation, but her body was betraying her. Across her stomach, the fine lines of her mark began to throb, anticipating. Still, she had to fool herself into thinking that she had some sort of control. Besides, even if he did want her as she did him, he could be toying with her - only using her for a momentary distraction. For the conquest, really. The thought alone was enough to twist her lower stomach. She wanted, more than anything, for this to be real. For whatever it was to be truly mutual.

Mercy accused him -- not without cause, of course -- of being able to manipulate humans, adding, "Anyone who’s ever known me knows that I’ve got two left feet.”

"Perhaps I am simply a great dance partner," Killian said, smiling a bit wider. "Perhaps I should be on one of those programs. Dancing With The Stars, is that not correct?"

“Besides, maybe I’m just hard up. It’s been a while.”

That comment literally caused Killian's already awake cock to twitch, proving that he was paying attention. He was about to make a comment about how he refused to believe that she ever had to do without when suddenly Mercy reached up and began to pull down the zipper of her hoody. She revealed the flesh and plentiful nature of her bosom, and Killian couldn't help but give her cleavage a conspicuous ogle.

She complimented his looks and ventured, “I’m quite sure you’ve had quite the parade of women in and out of here."

That was, in fact true. Hell, he'd had three different women here just this past week. But the reasons for their presence here were not of the same nature: one was here for sex, one was here for feeding, and one was here for both. So, did that make him the Playboy that Mercy was implying him to be?

"You lure me into bed under false pretenses of some silly ‘past’, and it hits the internet not even 5 minutes later. My name in the mud, your party stands to gain quite a bit of ground. Juvenile, but could have been very effective.”

"First, let me assure you, Miss Battle," Killian began, reverting to her surname for the moment, "that I would never let it leak to the Press that you and I were involved. After all, I have a reputation to protect, and, well, honestly ... I do not think that having it known that I was involved in that way with a conservative such as yourself would be of benefit to me."

His lips had spread as he spoke, an attempt to let her know that he was speaking in jest. Well, sort of. It was true: the Vampire Community would have a fit to learn that their greatest advocate was fucking their greatest opponent. But then, he was Killian, and the furor that would result would die down and disappear with his next very public and benevolent act for or toward his people.

"And second ... Mercy," he continued, now curling around her in such a way that when he finished he would be standing at the door beside her without ever having put himself in a position that might make her think he was trying to stop her from leaving, "let me also assure you that if ever you decide to spend some ... quality time in my bed ... it will not be because I have lured you there with one of my ... beyond human tricks."

He reached out for the knob and slowly opened the door to its fullest. He took a step back into the foyer before saying slowly as his gaze shifted occasionally from Mercy's face to her body and back, "I have a very expensive bottle of champagne waiting for us ... it will be perfectly chilled by now ... I am going to open it ... and pour two flutes full. I am then going to carry them to my bedroom..."

He began walking very slowly away from Mercy, still facing her, still looking her up and down. He continued with a sincere and suggestive tone, "... where ... I hope I will find you awaiting me, Mercy Battle. No vampire tricks. No inhuman influence."

He smiled wider and chuckled before continuing, "No hidden cameras for the pro-Vampire agenda. Just a man ... wanting to spend an evening ... pleasuring a woman who he wishes ... yearns to believe ... wants to be pleasured in a way she never has before."

He turned and continued slowly across the large room. He would do exactly as he said, unless Mercy did something to prevent it. Would she take a leap with this man -- this Vampire! -- she'd only just met? He doubted it. She was who she was, after all. And, of course, she didn't know him. But ... maybe?

This was a mistake.

She knew she’d regret it. There would be a million ways to beat herself up over it later.

But she closed the door behind her all the same.

____

She entered his bedroom with the trepidation of someone long conditioned to not enter a room unless they were explicitly given permission. True, he had invited her in, but he’d not waited for her. Her footsteps were light, cautious. Rather than taking the opportunity to look around, she kept her eyes straight forward. The fists within the jacket of her hoodie were balled tightly.

There were several ways, she thought, that she could handle her current situation. Still try to play coy, to find out what his true intentions were. To suddenly ice over and turn him down once she’d gotten the information that she needed. The latter seemed less likely; though he very easily could be lying to her, there was an element of uncertainty in him that made her wonder if he really knew anything about the mark: let alone that she had it to begin with. He was, potentially, like her: moving solely on a gut feeling. It almost seemed a shame that she couldn’t wholeheartedly trust him.

Yet, there was another option that she could take.

Closing the bedroom door behind her, she took a deep breath. Felt the warmth pool in her stomach - and then she was moving. Long, purposeful strides - quite quickly for a human, but slow for a vampire. Slow enough for him to have dodged, moved, if he so chose. If he stood still, then her strides would take her to him, and without pause, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed his lips to hers. Her full mouth was plush against his, warm, slightly sweet from the tea and honey she’d had before she came over. Her body pressed flush to his, there was a fury within her - the tenderness of the kiss nearly lost in her aggressive approach. He was something that she needed, and at this point, she was going to take it.

Killian could feel the tension -- sexual and otherwise -- burning the air around them as Mercy entered the bedroom. He half expected her to chastise him full force about even contemplating that she would enter that portion of his home ... of a vampire's home.

Needless to say, he was pleasantly surprised when she wrapped her arms around him, pressed her body against his, and met his mouth with her own in what very quickly became a passionate and erotic kiss.

Killian's own hands found Mercy's back, then slid downward to grasp her full buttocks with eager fingers. As the kiss persisted, he lifted Mercy to her toes, then even higher until his rapidly hardening cock found the cleft of where her upper thighs met her belly.

He didn't hesitate in turning her back to the bed and walking them to it. He placed one knee, then the other on the edge of the Super King and lowered her to the mattress below him.

"I want you, Mercy Battle," he said maintained his height over her and as began unbuttoning his shirt. "I want you ...like any man would want a woman ... no more."

He hoped Mercy understood that he was guaranteeing her that her flesh would not feel the bite of his fangs, but he did not speak the vow aloud, wanting her to think of him as nothing more than just a mere human.

Well, that was certainly one part of him that was very much alive.

And in those brief moments, nearly all of what she’d read and thought she knew about vampires went out the window.

Their lips had parted for seconds, enough for him to speak. Her face was oddly placid, almost as if what he was saying wasn’t quite sinking in. Ah, must still be some vestige of her logic struggling to kick in, to remind her that she was embarking on sheer folly. However, lust, passion, whatever it was that caused her skin to tingle, to burn, when he touched her was quickly overriding even the most deeply rooted need for self-preservation. Her blurred gaze focused on his lips, on the tantalizing tips of his fangs, and, subconsciously, she twisted ever so slightly beneath him. It was a mere turning of her head, exposing the slim column of her neck to him, a neck that was already magnificently set off by her short hair and build.

But, for as quickly as she’d settled, shown him that she was his for his fangs, she moved again, facing him fully. Her dark eyes bore into his, and while he unbuttoned his shirt, her fingers made quick work of her hoodie. The white tank top she wore beneath was sheer, the outlines of her dark areolas tantalizing. Her nipples were already erect, asking to be caressed.

Through their mutual movements on the bed, her sweat pants had slipped down the curves of her hips, exposing a hint of dark curls, and, the faintest hint of what could be a birthmark.

Mercy's turning of her head and, thus, exposing of her neck did not go unnoticed by Killian. And deep inside him, the more animalistic, hungry voices within him began screaming for him to feed, feed, feed! He could already taste the flesh of her neck, the many chemicals and elements in her blood upon which his kind survived as he began feverishly working his belt to free the other animalistic part of him that yearned satisfaction.

Then Mercy turned that vulnerable flesh away from an easy attack. As the front of his slacks opened and both they and his jockeys were pushed downward, revealing his already fully hardened and throbbing cock, Killian wondered whether the presentation of her neck had been intentional but abandoned, or a tease, or simply the movement of Mercy's head during the moment of rising heat.

He didn't care, to be honest. He wanted her as he'd said: man and woman, not Vampire and Donor. As he watched her stripping her top off, revealing large, round breasts and their pert, obvious nipples, Killian slid back to land his feet on the floor and -- as he stepped out of his slacks and underwear with a Look, ma, no hands feat -- leaned over to grasp the waist band of Mercy's sweats. With a strength no mere man could muster, he very simply pulled left and right at the reinforced waste band, easily tearing the front of them open and busting the still tied waist string.

Her panties were revealed below, and as he pulled the sweats downward toward Mercy's knees with alternating hands, Killian's free hand caressed over the lacy cloth--

And then suddenly, a now naked Killian -- less the socks still warming his ankles -- rose to height and backed away with a look of shock and fear that hadn't graced his face since before he'd been Blooded so many centuries ago.

"What is this...?" he murmured just loud enough for Mercy to here. He was staring directly at the mark on her belly. He backed another step, then another, as the nine inches of horizontal excitement before him began to droop toward a semi-flaccid state. His gaze rose to Mercy's face, which was filled with its own altered expression. Louder, almost accusingly, he demanded, "What is this? What is this that you bring into my home?"

The mark on Mercy's belly was almost glowing, as if written upon her with fluorescent paint. Killian knew what it was, of course: he'd seen an etching of it a century or so after he himself had been Blooded. But the story of the mark was fantasy, a story told between Sires and their Children much like human parents told their own children of the boogey man.

Killian turned suddenly and stormed off toward the open doors of his massive walk-in closet. A moment later he returned in a long, satin robe with a second one in his hands. He tossed it onto the bed next to Mercy, telling her only, "Dress."

He turned away without taking notice of Mercy's reaction to the sudden change of events and headed quickly out of the bedroom and for the penthouse's front door. Out of his guest's sight but not out of her earshot, he opened the door and told the ever present bodyguard there, "Lock down the building. No one in or out without my expressed authorization."

"Yes, sir," the guard said without hesitation.

"I want both the Light and Dark security heads in my suite within the hour," Killian continued as the other man was already issuing orders over the radio he carried. The guard acknowledge those orders, too, after which Killian gave one last order, "Anyone enters this building without authority ... shoot to kill."

"Yes, sir," the guard said without hesitation.

The sound of the door closing and both manual and electronic locks securing was followed by Killian returning to Mercy. The panic in his face had waned a bit, but the sudden loss of confidence and control that Mercy had seen as he stripped her for a night of erotic pleasure was gone.

"Please forgive me if I have frightened you, Mercy," he said in a sincere tone, standing away from her as if not knowing whether it was safe or not. "That was not my intention. It is only that..."

He glanced toward her waist, then pointed in the general direction of the mark as he looked back up to her face and asked, "Are you aware of what that is? Of what it makes you? Of what dangers you face ... dangers face by anyone around you ... even me ... should anyone of consequence know you bear the Mark of Union?"

Her body was no longer her own, driven by the fire that consumed her the instant her lips touched his. The mark on her body was emblazoned, magnetizing into fluid gold. Her hands moved on their own, divesting her clothing in clouds of gray and white, her labia plump and her cunt dripping, contracting in anticipation of feeling him, finally feeling him, damn everything else -

And he stopped, so suddenly that she let out a whine as he pulled away. Her pulse moved so quickly she felt that her very veins were visible, her body electric from him, for him. In his absence, she lay on the bed, quite dazed, her dark eyes hooded and contemplating the ceiling. A hand landed placidly on the mark on her stomach; cupping those molten words between her fingers as if she could contain them. Not the first time since she’d met him, her body sang. Now, however, she was beginning to walk towards understanding what it meant.

The robe deposited in front of her lay there. Sitting up slowly, her hand was still pressed to her stomach, speaking into her. When she moved again, it was to remove what was left of her sweat pants. Now entirely nude on his bed, she moved her hands between her legs, letting the luminescent mark sing from her body, gilded writing against her brown skin.

It took her a long time, far longer than it should have, to answer him. When she did, her voice was far away, filtered through a funnel. “I was born with it…it comes and goes.” No dodging in her voice; just soft marvel. “it’s never reacted like this.” The timbre of her voice had dropped - even if she wasn’t directly saying it, she was begging him to come back to bed with her. “Since that night.”

The robe was tossed to the side of the bed and onto the floor. She leaned back on the bed now, brazenly spreading her legs. Her passion glistened in the curls of her pubic hair, her entrance a pale pink against her body.

As soon as she opened her legs, she slammed them shut again, pressing her fingers deeper into her stomach. What in the hell was that? This was wrong. All wrong. Scrambling to the edge of the bed, she collected the robe and quickly pulled it on, as if the fabric would be enough to forever shield her from him. She put a hand to the side of her head, moving it to rub at her closed eyes. She had no idea what was going on with her body - other than her birthmark was blazing hot, and it was nearly physically pulling her towards him. A man she barely knew, and a vampire on top it. This was wrong. All wrong.

“I..” She looked at him, her expression raw and pleading. “I need to go. I need to get out of here.” Shuffling to the end of the bed, she stood on slightly unsteady legs, doing everything she could to calm herself down. This had to be a fever dream; there’s no way it was reality. “I can’t be seen here. This was a mistake.”