Each revealed truth is measured by

The thickness of your new skin.

Even if I knew my life would end right there, I couldn't have pushed away from him. It simply wasn't an option. The heat of his hands trapped both sides of my face before our skin touched again, his thumbs meeting under my chin to gently tip my face up. No electricity this time, just the extraordinary sensation of being able to touch a living flame.

Gaze climbing slowly from the middle of his chest, where his long scarf swung towards me, I hesitated before locking eyes with him again. When I finally did, I felt like I'd been punched. Clearly, Natsu was just as helpless as I was—and I wasn't sure if that should be reassuring or terrifying.

"Lucy…"

His lips barely moved as he breathed my name. My eyes fluttered closed when I felt the tip of his nose brush against mine—the barest hint of touch. Hovering on the tightrope between ecstasy and torture, I waited, and waited, before…finally, his mouth drifted against my lips. So soft that I thought I might have imagined it.

Taking on a mind of their own, my hands found their way to his chest, right over where the scarf was knotted. The millimeter of space between his lips and mine closed again, and my fists tightened into the fabric, one thumb brushing against the bare skin of his chest. The purr that rolled up through his throat thrummed underneath my fingers, and his kiss was no longer a question. Teasing my bottom lip, he drew it in and between his own. As I knew already, his entire skin was so devastatingly hot—yet somehow his lips burned at an even higher temperature, and I gasped with the sheer heat of it.

He suddenly broke the kiss after my surprised sound. I managed to bite off my disappointed whimper, hanging onto a vestige of dignity. My eyelids gradually opened again, and the breath I had just taken left in a whoosh. Natsu's eyes burned into mine with something intense and disarmingly uncertain. I reached up, finally tucking those stray hairs away from his forehead. Every muscle in his face stayed motionless, but when my hand passed over his scorching forehead and down across his cheek, his expression softened, mouth relaxing into a near-smile.

Before I could speak, he stiffened again and his eyes, now extremely alert, snapped to the golden window several stories above.

"Someone's here."

Still in recovery mode, I couldn't quite speak.

"Mmm…?"

"It's one of your police friends. I just heard the door to your apartment open."

The fog in my brain cleared slightly. If it was Erza, Natsu might not get out of there alive.

"Which one?"

"The redhead."

He didn't sound fearful enough. It was rumored that Erza had once reduced the Magnolia chief of police to a crying mess in his office, and after meeting the scarred, stern-voiced man myself, I was fairly confident my friend would be able to put the fear of immediate and painful death into a vampire, no matter how tough he might think himself.

"Are you still going to come with me?"

Natsu recaptured my attention with the question. The cocksure attitude I had come to expect from him was not there anymore, and the tinge of vulnerability in his voice prompted me to answer honestly.

"I think I might have to."

He grinned at me again, slowly this time, which did very interesting things to my heart rate.

"So…you just can't stay away from me, can you?"

Scratch that. If Erza didn't kill him, I'd do it myself.

"No. I meant—"

He cut me off with a "shushing" gesture as he abruptly looked up at the window again, eyes focusing on the square of brilliance on the side of the dark building. I was prepared to be offended at Natsu's dismissal, but his shocked inhale distracted me. His sharp ears had picked up something else from my apartment. Something he apparently was not expecting.

"Shit. She brought an exemplar."

His hand over my mouth suppressed a scream of outrage as my legs were suddenly swept right out from under me. Apparently my departure was no longer optional. Thirty seconds later, as I was being whisked in Natsu's arms through the backstreets of Magnolia, I gathered enough breath to gasp,

"Where are we going?!"

"Somewhere safer."

Jostling against his chest, I tried to avoid biting off my own tongue as I asked:

"And wh-where exactly might that be?"

"You…might not like it that much."

This discouraging answer caused me to stiffen, and I craned my head to look past his shoulder to see where we were headed. Thanks to Natsu's effortless speed, we were journeying through a part of Magnolia that I would never have been caught in on my own. The blue summer moonlight replaced the liquid brilliance of sunset, sharpening the corners of broken windows and painting the shadows an even deeper black. The few occupied streets Natsu took were peopled with the denizens of smoky dive bars, poorly lit gentlemen's clubs, the occasional red light establishment—and I felt much safer in my current company than I would have in the presence of any human males in that area.

Natsu's rapid pace was so smooth that I nearly forgot I was being carried. Nearly forgot that this vampire—whom I had just voluntarily kissed—was hurtling with me in his arms toward an unknown destination. The sparkling pinpricks of his gaze landed on my face, on my downcast eyes. He wasn't looking where he was going, but he probably didn't need to. I had forgotten he could hear the tension climbing in my body without my having to say a word.

"The neighborhood isn't exactly reassuring me," I said, worry creeping into my voice.

"Don't worry, Lucy. I'm taking you somewhere safe."

Before I could answer, his pace slowed considerably. Then, he set me down so fast my stomach dropped, and I made myself dizzy twisting my head to every side looking for some landmark I recognized. While I was trying to determine my location, my legs shook under me from the shock of being carried to the other end of the city in about five minutes.

I was far away from any of the familiar streets—that much I could tell. Beyond that, it was a mystery. I couldn't even see a sign with the name of the road. A guttering street lamp about ten yards away was the only source of light, and several dingy doors lined the narrow street, which dead-ended in a high, rough brick wall. As far as I could tell, there wasn't another living soul in sight. Natsu began walking towards the nearest door, which looked like it belonged to a rundown hostel. The dumpster next to it flooded the area with the stench of refuse, and acid climbed in my throat as I took a few unsteady steps after him.

"You aren't seriously saying this is the safe place," I said weakly, my knees finally turning to water.

Immediately appearing at my side, he slid a hot arm under my shoulders to support me.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have set you down so fast."

I shot him a glare that could have curdled milk, and tried to ignore the very hard, very warm bare arm that was the only thing holding me up.

"What you shouldn't have done is kidnapped me. I never actually said I'd come with you."

He grinned crookedly and started awkwardly shuffling me in the direction of the door.

"But you didn't say no!"

"Because you threw me out the window!"

"I didn't throw you. I escorted you."

I stopped just a few feet short of the dingy doorway, anger keying my voice upwards.

"Do you really think Erza and Jellal will just let me disappear like that? They're going to come looking for us—for you, I mean."

Natsu withdrew his arm from under my shoulders and put a few inches of space between us. The night wasn't cold, but the absence of his burning touch left me shivering. I pulled the long sleeves of my thin shirt down farther on my wrists and wished I had a jacket.

"I'm not worried about it."

"You're not even a little concerned about what will happen now between the nest and the police?"

Something tightened in his face. Without looking at me, he walked forward to push the door open, which released an overwhelming reek of rancid flesh and animal carcasses.

"I can answer some of your questions, but first you have to get inside."

I was already pinching my nose to avoid passing out from the stench, but one look at his face told me Natsu was dead serious. He avoided my gaze as I walked through the doorway, and the warm tingles of his attention fell glancingly on my back as he shut the door behind us. The darkness was stagnant, and even though I breathed conscientiously through my mouth, I could practically taste the pungent air.

"This way."

Natsu pushed me gently towards a dim light at the end of the room, and a few cautious steps later, I saw it illuminated a short stairway to an upper level. I started up the stairs eagerly, needing to escape the suffocation of the ground level enclosure. At the top of the ascent, I saw a closed door outlined by a thin square of light from the room beyond. As I struggled one-handedly with the latch, a larger hand plucked at my sleeve. In the dim light, I made out Natsu's face looking down at me in amusement. He held a key that was obviously meant for the old-fashioned, clumsy lock.

"This will work better, I think."

I couldn't respond, now that I was firmly holding my breath. Natsu opened up the door, which creaked on its complaining hinges, and in less than a second he had moved aside for me to get in. Black spots popped in front of my eyes, and I stumbled into the room after him to draw in an enormous breath. The ungodly smell was still slightly present, but much fainter now that Natsu had closed the door again. He leaned against it with his arms crossed, to watch me—apparently to make sure I got my wind back without collapsing again.

After a few deep breaths of nearly clean air, I was able to straighten up and face him with utter stupefaction.

"What was that? It smelled like an old slaughterhouse."

He chuckled, making the muscles underneath his vest quiver. The next second, something ash-blue and hairy darted between my ankles, yowling grievously, and jumped onto Natsu's chest above his crossed arms. It settled there, fixing its gigantic eyes on me as if I were a terrifying intruder.

"I missed you too, Happy," Natsu greeted the thing, scratching its furry head with one finger. "And to answer your question, Lucy—this is my home."

Since Jellal had elected to stay behind at the nest in an effort to—politely—wring information out of some of the other vampires, it was Erza who stood in the doorway to the three girls' apartment, hands on hips and a look of profound displeasure on her face. Her fingers twitched towards her holstered weapon as the uninvited and unwelcome visitor strode deeper into the apartment.

"Natsu has been here recently—certainly within the last two days," remarked the tall, yellow-haired vampire mere seconds after passing through the living room. A scar shaped like a lightning bolt carved a jagged path up one side of his face, slicing over an eyelid and the thick eyebrow above. He swiveled his head to observe the doorway into the adjoining kitchen, then the opening to the short hallway, as if he were in search of something.

"Precisely. Just as I told you at the nest." She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice, and barely succeeded. "Is there any reason you insisted on coming here, Laxus?"

He took his time answering, silently choosing instead to walk down the hallway into Juvia's empty room. Once inside, he turned back to address Erza's question. She had followed him into the room, her eye twitching noticeably. In her opinion, there had been far too many vampires in this building in the last 48 hours.

"Talented as you are, Scarlet, your senses are acutely lacking. There is a story in every scent, and following the clues it leaves will provide us with the tools we need to find out what is happening to your friends. This is the room that was left untouched, I can already tell that easily."

Brushing past her, Laxus moved on to Levy's room, which was also currently uninhabited. In between casting more hair-raising glares in the vampire's direction, Erza began to grow anxious about why all the girls might still be out of the building. Following him into the next bedroom, she discerned from the light outside the window that darkness was just beginning to settle over the city. Juvia had made her after-work plans with Gray known loud and clear, but Levy and Lucy should be coming back within minutes.

After she stopped in Levy's room, Erza knew instantly from the look on Laxus' face that he had just discovered something new. A muscle in his prominent jaw began to tic.

"So he hasn't just disappeared either."

Erza balled her fists next to her sides, calling on her patience to prevent her from doing something very stupid—such as, for instance, shooting him. Her next words came out in a warning growl.

"Who. Who hasn't disappeared?"

"Gajeel Redfox."

Erza's closed fists whitened, and her irritation morphed into vague dread. Laxus continued:

"He was supposed to return yesterday night from feeding outside the city, but no one has heard from him in the last two days."

The cold stone that had settled in her stomach pressed deeper towards the floor.

"So—let me get this straight—not only are you saying that one of the youngest and most dangerous Magnolia vampires has been inside my friend's bedroom, but that he has also vanished into thin air?"

Laxus nodded silently. She followed him without commentary into the last bedroom—Lucy's—and nearly collided with the vampire's broad back as he stopped short at the doorway, his foot half-raised to take a step into the room. Genuinely baffled at his hesitation, Erza backed up and watched him enter the room slowly, warily. Unable to see his face, she couldn't truly gauge his reaction until he turned toward her again. When he was about halfway into the small room, he turned on a heel, lightning-fast, and kicked over the wastepaper basket next to Lucy's tiny desk. A few wadded-up pages tumbled out, along with a handful of something black and powdery that settled vividly on the light carpet.

"Natsu's fire?" she asked, gesturing at the fresh ashes that spread like a stain on Lucy's clean carpet. She hoped to prod an explanation from Laxus, who seemed to have momentarily forgotten she was in the room. He was staring down at the black specks intently.

"Yes. And he was here, just minutes ago, with your friend Lucy."

Looking up at Erza, Laxus wore a serious, drawn expression.

"You said Lucy Heartfilia's and Levy McGarden's blood was stolen?"

She nodded, something gnawing in the back of her mind: a revelation she wished she could ignore.

"I think I may have just discovered where it ended up."

Erza's mouth set in a tight line. Laxus' sharp senses had picked up the evidence of something she had suspected, but been unwilling to face. Whoever had stolen Lucy's blood had somehow fed it to Natsu Dragneel. Now Lucy was all alone somewhere—and he was hunting her.

A/N: I'M ALIVE. And I'm so sorry. I really, really didn't mean to take this long to update, but to be honest I didn't have some of the biggest plot points figured out yet, and I thought that might be pretty important to do first. :) Those of you who left reviews asking if I was going to come back to this really helped light the fire under me, so thank you! :D

Hopefully you'll all still continue to read and enjoy this, even though I can't promise regular and/or fast updates for the next few months. I wish I had nothing to do but write fanfic, but sadly, this is not the case. Don't worry though, I love this story too much to let it die unfinished. Thanks for sticking with me, guys. *hugs*