We did not sleep all night. When we finally stirred to leave our paradise it was dawn, sunrise like a forbidden fruit, yet we tasted it regardless. He squinted into the light, sweat gleaming on his skin, naked, Adonis destroyed.

"What are you?" I asked, fingers running over his chest as I lay beside him, his servant, his slave.

"What would logic determine me to be?"

"A freak of nature, a medical anomaly."

He bared his fangs and parted my legs with his as he manoeuvred himself on top of me. He grazed my shoulder with his teeth, tongue running over the puncture wounds that had still not healed, fingers on my thigh, stroking them there too.

"Vampires don't exist." I told him.

"I never said they did." He smiled, eyes glittering like water over glass.

"Fuck it. I don't care anyway." I said in defiance, my mind swimming with possibilities. If he wasn't a vampire, then why did he bite me? He could be a psychopath. Or a hardcore Dracula fan. And why did I like it?

I was dark, but not that dark.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, his eyes locking onto mine. "This never happened."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, ignoring the clouds forming in my mind like smoke. Wind in my hair as I flew on a dragon, scales glittering green, dust in my eyes, red dust, blinding. Shadows danced for me like nymphs. I was a Goddess amongst the trees, my memories were my subjects, and oh, how they danced for me. They danced and danced and disbanded; one by one they left me. He had taken them once again, and I did not care.

I was so wet, as he looked down at me, the smile gone; only the darkness remained. The darkness and the stolen shadows.

'Stop. Stop now. Stop before you are forced to your knees. Stop before he takes everything you have.' I could hear Karina in my mind, a warning.

"Stop." I said, pushing him off me with hands too weak, sitting up with muscles too feeble. "I shouldn't be here. I saw my shadows in your eyes. You took them. What are you?" I sighed into the whispers of the forest.

"I am upir." He uttered, staring me down as he sat with his arms around his knees beside me.

"Umm. What?" I had to suppress a smirk.

"I am a Russian daywalker that feeds from the tender blood of children." He said, straight-faced and honesty burning like ice through my chest. He placed his hands behind him, palms flat to the forest floor, mud beneath his fingernails.

A laugh burst forth from my stomach. "You nearly had me then!" I chuckled, slapping his chest with the back of my hand.

A smile curved his lips to an arch, and amusement made his eyes sparkle.

"And there I was assuming you were gullible." He told me. "But then again, if you were, you wouldn't be here." His smile faded, only to be replaced by a look of mourning, eyes dull with grievance.

"Oh Roman, don't go all sad and pathetic. That's not the fucking creep I'm used to." I said with a wink as I lifted a leg over his hips, straddling his thighs.

He lay back down and laced his fingers behind his head. I sat down on his knees, bending down to kiss his navel, lips winding their way up to his throat. A growl rumbled in his stomach, then his throat, and I stood to leave.

"What are you doing?" He asked, a tone of alarm between his words. My vision went blank, and I saw him, green eyes glittering like dragon scales, blood on his lips, the asphalt sidewalk black in contrast to his alabaster flesh. I was thrown back to the present and the mist concealed my memory once again.

"Breakfast." I announced, temporarily stunned before a smile broke out like a lunar eclipse. I made my way back to his car, retrieving various items of clothing on the way. He followed like a lost dog, obeying its master until the time was right to bite the hand that fed him.

Shirtless and trembling on the sidewalk, a body twitching beneath him, blood on his lips.

The mist returned and I forgot.

He turned the keys in the ignition, fully clothed, looking over at me with feigned concern.

We drove for as long as it took for the sun to rise to the centre of the sky and the clouds to veil its light, my head resting on the window, feeling the air conditioning stroke my cheek.

He bought me pancakes and a black coffee, and a line of coke for him. Cutting it finely with one of his many credit cards before snorting it with a red-striped straw from the counter. Nobody noticed; nobody cared.

It took all of my energy to prevent the words 'You should stop.' from leaving my lips. I did not love this man; I had known him for three days, I shouldn't care.

My shadows hit as hard as they could against their cell, fingernails bleeding and tears streaming down cheeks. I could feel the bars creak under the assault, but they would not break for as long as I was alive; the shadows would never escape. My memories were lost forever.

And suddenly all the weight of the world crashed onto my shoulders, their claws digging into my eyes, teeth in my chest, tearing out my heart, tearing out my everything, making me see the death, the war, the children as they starved. It latched itself onto my spinal column, where the bone meets the brain stem, clinging to my very life force by forcing itself deep into my mind.

I gasped in agony, the agony of the thousands, and I could feel the darkness at the edges of my vision, forcing me to unconciousness, falling, falling off my chair sideways, the white linoleum rushing up to meet my face, falling.

And then it consumed me, the dying sigh of a woman on the black asphalt ringing in my ears, the startlingly pale face of the man looming at her throat the last thing I saw.