9 - Odd

Fraser

I detect the precise moment that the human girl enters the dungeons. She has entered my domain, my cage, and she's doing of her own free will. I'm astounded, especially after what I said to her last time, and the way she left.

I hear the creak of the door, more gentle than Laird Sinclair, and timid as she sneaks down the cobble stairs one at a time. It's her. I know it.

If my ears hadn't alerted me first, my nose certainly would've. She smells sweet, but also fresh, like she's just been outside.

I sit up in interest, taking a deep breath in through my nose and letting the scent dance around my tongue. It's refreshing to smell something besides stuffy dust and cobwebs.

Besides that, it also stings me, this alluring smell of this odd girl. I'm starving down here, and the scent of a tantalizing scent of a meal is pure, sweet torture.

She pokes her head around the corner, holding her lamp high above her head as she squints into the darkness that consumes me. I chuckle a little to myself. I often forget how helpless humans really are. Without fire their eyes are completely useless.

To be fair to the mortals, the undead are given excellent night vision for a purpose. Aye, we need to be able to see our prey when we stalk them.

It helps that the prey can't see us, and that's obvious enough as the little human tip toes towards me, completely unaware of the danger waiting for her just beyond the shadows.

My nose flinches as I realize she's carrying food with her. I may have avoided food my whole life, but i know what bread smells like.

"Hello?" Her voice is small, breathless. Her breathing seems ragged. Each inhale hitches somewhere in her chest.

How odd. Odd is a word I think often when it comes to this girl.

I lean forward, my back leaving the wall as I sink closer to the human.

"I threaten your life, and you decide to return. Why is that?" I purr, enjoying the way she startles like a field mouse that spotted the cat prowling around the corner, claws out and at the ready.

She stamps her foot slightly, rattling the precious lamp she holds. It sways, the light bouncing and flickering across dirt covered bricks and bars.

"Well, I didn't want you to starve." She insists, voice brimming with barely leashed sass.

For a flash of a moment, I think she's referring to her delicious blood. My gaze glides to her pale throat, a soft column peeking out behind waves of blonde locks. I know biting into her would be absolute perfection.

She couldn't possibly know that I'm a vampire. And if she did, I doubt she would offer herself up on a silver platter.

The little thing holds a loaf of bread in one of her hands, titling it as if offering it to me.

She brought me human food. This Sinclair girl, she's trying to help me.

Odd. Definitely odd.

Little does she know that I cant digest bread, and that what I really need to prevent my starvation is running through her delicate veins.

She tries to take a step towards me, and I jolt into action. I need to stop her before she gets too close.

"And why do you think that I need your help?" I hiss, and my words work, she stops dead.

She thinks on it for a moment, as if she doesn't know why herself.

"Because no one else is helping you." She murmurs.

My breath whistles out through my nose. She isn't wrong.

"If you want to help so badly, let me out of here." I say, knowing what the answer will be even before she starts shaking her head.

"I don't have a key, even if I wanted to let you out, I couldn't." She says, crawling foreward once more.

The perfume of her is stronger now, so intoxicating that I cant think straight for a moment.

She's getting closer, close enough that I could reach her if I wanted to. My finger clench and unclench in my lap. My instincts scream at me to ambush, but something deep in my heart aids me control. As her scent wafts afround me, a certain strange calm seems to settle inside me.

I blink, not sure what to make of this feeling.

The gentle wash of orange light flickers across my face, I refrain from moving away, staying still so that she may see me. It's only fair, I've seen her twice now.

When she spots me, she gasps.

I smile a small smile, wondering what she sees. I've often been told that I am a handsome man, but my once bare face is now shrouded with a beard from the weeks spent imprisoned.

My hair isnt combed, my face likely spotted with dirt and blood.

Regardless, she stares at me with something akin to wonder shining in her blue eyes.

"Not what you were expecting?" I cant help asking, the question yanked out of me by some unknown source.

She shrugs.

"Well, not exactly, no." Her voice rumbles over me, and I want to bathe in every syllable she gives me. "I thought you'd be ugly."

I'm shocked by the joke, even barking out an unexpected laugh.

"So, I am not ugly to you?"

She goes a brilliant shade of red. I don't know why, but this thrills me, the thought that she might find me attractive. I itch to reach my hand out through the bars, but not to maim, to carress. I find myself longing to drag my knuckles across her rosy cheek.

I wonder how she would react.

"Yes. I mean no!" She fumbles over her words, shaking her head and becoming redder buy the moment. "I only mean... oh I don't know what I mean."

Her hand juts out suddenly, offering the bread to me, her fingers so near that I can study the tiny hairs that stand on end in the cold.

"I don't even know your name, lass, and you're trying to save me?"

She quirks her mouth to the side, digesting my words and creating her own.

"Everyone needs saving. And my name is Ailsa, nice to meet you."

Ailsa. A name with many meanings. Mountain, victory, and most importantly a beautiful highlander girl with the most beautiful face I've ever seen.

She shoves the bread through the bars, and for a moment I consider telling her to leave in a not so nice fashion. The scent of the disgusting human food is repulsive to me, but having her so near is like nothing I've experienced before.

I take the bread, knowing I wont eat it, but it may attract rats, and those I can at least snack on. My hand brushes hers, fingertips on fingertips. A pulse of heat makes its way up my arm and straight to my heart. I yank my hand back, the loaf of bread firm in my grasp.

I know Ailsa felt it too. I can hear her heartbeat thundering. I feel her quickening breath that creaks and groans in her chest. Something isn't right with her lungs. The discovery bothers me.

Shaking the thought off, I growl under my breath at her.

"If you know whats good for you, you'll stay away from me." I demand, and I get the result I wanted, she withdraws.

Ailsa looks unsure, almost embarrassed, and I immediately regret my words. I hurry to right them.

"It's not safe. You shouldn't be down here."

"Neither should you."

For the first time in centuries, my heart pangs.

I've never met anyone like this girl, and I have a feeling I'm going to see her again.