Her body was mesmerizing; as she danced, no one could look away. She cast a spell on them with her dance, hypnotized them with her beauty, and held them captive with her liquid grace.

When her eyes snapped open the crowd drew a collective gasp. Her eyes were ice blue, a rarity for one so dark. Ebony locks spilled loosely down to her slim waist in silken waves, glinting raven’s wing black in the fire of the torches. Olive skin, sleek and oiled, accompanied almond shaped eyes, framed by thick, long, dark lashes, her light eyes exaggerated by her darkness. Her lips, as full as the bright moon above her, were blood- red and tempting, even at a distance.

She focused in on one man in particular, standing on the center of the crowd, out of long acquired habit. Apparently they both found something they liked, because the man couldn’t look away, and the dancer couldn’t either; she was trying. She put out a hand, and beckoned to him, a clear invitation to the stage.

His feet responded without his permission, and he repressed an urge to call them traitors out loud. Their eyes stayed locked in intense conversation. He threaded his way through the crowd to the stage, and climbed the wooden stairs to the dais, never once loosing eye contact with the dancer.

She started to move toward him across the stage, and he decided he didn’t want to wait for her to get to him. He took his time striding to the center of the stage, meeting her halfway. Thinking he didn’t know the steps, she began the dance, (it called for her to dance around him in the beginning anyway.) Little did she know, the stranger on her stage knew the steps as well as she did. Perhaps better. He knew this dance better than his own bed, and he wasn’t about to let her think otherwise.

She was about to exclude him from the steps when he took her hand and began the man’s part of the performance, joining his body with the spell. Their eyes locked once more and the complicated steps of the Lover’s Harvest Dance unfolded before the awestruck audience.

Though he was not dark like the woman, the man held his own in beauty. He complimented her beautifully and at the same time, managed not to out - shine her. He had long black hair, and skin as white as new snow with ebony eyes that had no pupil. Eyes whose irises nearly consumed the white. He was dressed in black clothing that exaggerated the paleness of his skin and assassin’s boots made of soft leather. His shirt, open at the neck, revealed a sculpted chest and hard muscle right out of every woman’s deepest fantasies. No doubt, they would have swooned at the sight, had they not been caught in the dancer’s snare.

Both dancers moved with an unearthly grace, seeming to twist and twine with the light of the flames in the torches. Among their dance with the flames, they wrapped around each other in the near impossible positions the dance called for. They were completely trapped by the music, and with the dance as their captor, they too, were as much victims of their own spell as the crowd was.

The dance was scandalously voluptuous to begin with, but considering the girl’s costume, the man she was dancing with and the haunting music, the dance skirted legal restrictions.

Despite the sensual implications however, the priest that had been walking by stopped and watched; the constable stopped and watched; even the vampiric assassin, stopped to stare, and the crowd that had gathered couldn’t have looked away to save their lives.

On the stage, the only things the dancers were aware of were their partner’s body, and the heat in their eyes. Needless to say, they were completely oblivious to the world, and everything in it.

The dance ended suddenly, as it was meant to, and the music faded away, leaving the crowd hot and flushed, and the two dancers frozen in the final pose, eyes still locked in intensely heated awareness.

The woman didn’t move from his arms, “You knew the steps.”

It wasn’t a question.

The man who held her smiled slowly, “So do you.”

She smiled up at him and suddenly he couldn’t breathe right. He was trapped in a smile that could bring ANY mortal man to his knees; and destroy him, a smile that would rock a vampire lord back on his heels and make him stop to stare.

For one split second, her beauty was greater than that of his kin, and he very nearly forgot she was mortal. Her chest moving regularly up, and down, against his chest as she breathed, and the feeling of the warm, thick blood rushing through her veins reminded him harshly.

“You are a beautiful dancer, stranger.” she said stepping reluctantly away from him.

He snapped back to reality, and shrugged, “I’ve had practice.”

She smiled again, but this time it was more to herself than him, “I bet you have.” she murmured appreciatively, and somehow, he got the distinct impression she wasn’t talking about dancing.

Her eyes floated down his body and he stood calmly under her scrutiny, not at all shy, as he exacted one of his own. Her distracting costume was the color of blood, with silver flecks of glitter that danced in the light. It covered what was necessary, but left everything else bare, and he got the feeling she didn’t like clothes, the feeling that if given a choice, she wouldn‘t wear anything at all. Over the impossibly short skirt was a piece of diagonal cut cloth that looked like a shawl, but had dangling strings where shiny pieces of metal hung that chimed when she moved.

He reached out and ran his slender fingers through the dangling strings, frowning. He wanted to tear it away and burn it, then put the ashes in acid. He hated that piece of cloth more fiercely than anything, or anyone, he had ever encountered.

He sensed she was waiting for him to finish his thoughts, and his hand dropped back to his side, stiff with control, as he looked up.

She smiled sadly as their eyes met, “You don’t like it.”

He tilted his head to the side, as if he didn’t understand what she was talking about. Perceptive, wasn’t she?

She lifted the despised cloth in one hand. “You don’t like this.”

He looked at her intensely, his eyes boring ruthlessly into hers, “No.”

She frowned, but didn’t look away, “Why not?”

He looked away, turning as he did toward the steps of the stage, “It hides beauty.” he said quietly over his shoulder.

He had made it to the edge of the top step when he felt her hand on his shoulder. He stopped mid-step, and she whispered in his ear, “Only from those who don’t treasure it.”

The offending piece of cloth dropped over his head, and slipped over one of his shoulders to drop into his arms. He caught it easily, but by the time he’d turned around, she was already walking away toward the back of the stage.

He looked back to the cloth in his hands, his black eyes clouded with desire and indecision. “Oh, jeez.” he growled and appeared back stage before he could change his mind.

The dancer was lying on a makeshift bed in the far back corner, one arm tossed haphazardly over her eyes. He moved again standing now, beside the bed, “You dropped this.” he said, dangling it over her stomach.

She smiled, but didn’t move. “You lie.”

His brow creased in puzzlement.

“I did not drop it.”

He looked even more confused.

“It was a gift,” she continued, “to a handsome stranger who knew the steps to the Lover’s Harvest.” She drew her arm away from her eyes, and looked up at him teasingly, “You must return it to him.”

He grinned in spite of himself, “But miss,” he said, faking concern, “He wished me to return it to you, what-ever shall I tell him?”

She couldn’t take it anymore and laughed out-loud.

His smile grew wider, and he found himself proud that he’d made her laugh.

She sat up and stood in the same movement, then, on an impulse, hugged him fiercely.

He froze. A mortal was hugging him. He wasn’t biting her. Oh, boy.

She left her arms around his neck, but leaned back to look him in the face, cocking an eyebrow, “Do you know how to hug?” she asked, teasing him.

He smiled in relief, “Yeah, that’s it, I don’t know how to hug.” he said, desperately grabbing at a joke to explain his odd behavior. He relaxed as an idea came to him. “If you want one, I’m afraid you’ll have to show me, miss.”

She rolled her eyes, and put on an exasperated air, “Give me your arms.” she sighed.

His eyes widened in faux fear, “But, miss!” he exclaimed, “I haven’t done anything!”

She glared at him and he lifted his arms, smiling all the while. “O.K,” she said briskly, wrapping his arms around her waist, “Put your arms here, and hold tightly,”

He held her tight enough to make her gasp for breath, “Not…… so…… tight!”


He loosened his grip.

She regained her composure, “Now lean close and squeeze…. Gently!” she said, sounding for a second like a school teacher. She demonstrated.

He hugged her close, pressing her body down the length of his in more than a hug, “Like this?” he asked quietly.

She swallowed hard, and leaned back to look him in the eyes, “Something to that effect.”

He jerked his arms without warning and she slammed up against him, gasping. Their bodies fit together as well as he had imagined, maybe better. He leaned in to kiss her lips, but she turned away before he could and he ended up kissing her cheek instead.

“I don’t know you, friend.” she said, clearly torn on what to do. She could be decent, and deprived, or stupid and satisfied.

He tightened one arm around her waist, perfectly aware that if he kissed her, she would change her mind. She would not be able to refuse him a second time. He pushed her hair back from her face with his other hand. “You will,” he whispered gently, “You will know me well.” He kissed her forehead, not knowing why he’d said what he’d just said, turned away and disappeared, grabbing the hated cloth from her costume on his way.

The boy had lost his mind.

That was the thought that ran through the head of his superior, who happened to be the vampiric assassin in the crowd. The second thought ran along the vein of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that’s the Lover’s Harvest.

When his partner disappeared backstage after the dancer he thought he was going to have a heart attack. This was unlikely, as his current life status prevented such things, but he was concerned nonetheless.

When the other vamp reappeared on the stage, just as pale as he’d taken it the first time, his partner sighed in relief. All a bit too soon.

When the man had made it back to his partner’s side, he said three words he’d never spoken before outside the context of battle, “Tornan, she’s mine.”

Tornan looked shocked. His partner looked down right possessive.

A few moments later, when both of them were thinking along the same lines, it was the single thought of, Oh s***.

Except stronger.

Much stronger.

Tornan was speechless for the first time in three hundred years, it was not a common occurrence as he’d been a writer all the years before his turning. When he found his voice all he could say was this, “Daniel, have you finally decided to jump off the deep end head first?”

Daniel was standing in the same place, his voice was uncertain, “Did I just claim that dancer?”

Tornan blinked at him with some incredulity, “Vehemently.”

Daniel blinked at himself, and asked his partner, “Do you think I’ll die when I hit the rocks at the bottom?”

Tornan’s eyes widened slightly, “So you are going then.”

This time Daniel was without doubt. “Vehemently.”

His grin was that of an idiot.

He strode away through the crowd with a determined gait, leaving Tornan standing in shock. “That was horrible, Daniel, and you know it.”

Daniel turned and beamed again as he refuted the words, “Just crazy.”

Tornan shook his head, “Not her. The words. That is NOT how you use vehemently.”

Daniel shrugged, still grinning away, “I though it fit rather well.”

Tornan sighed, “Why did I sire you again?” He sounded quite sincere in his need to know.

At this point his grin was in danger of taking over his face, but Daniel’s smile found the other side of impossible. It got bigger. “I was an eloquent speaker.”

Tornan seriously considered putting a garlic stake through his own heart.

He retracted his consideration immediately.

Daniel bowed grandly, the dancer’s costume piece waving like a victory flag. Tornan glared at the boy, the look reminiscent of a father’s scorn, “Don’t push it, fledgling.”

Daniel simply smiled, “We have a job to do I believe, correct?”

Tornan shook his head muttering something rather uncomplimentary about young vampires, “Yes, Daniel.”

The younger partner turned and swept a hand grandly in front of him, “Shall we?”

Tornan ignored him, and turned in the opposite direction, leaving Daniel staring blankly at his broad back.

He rushed to catch up with the older man. “What’d I say?”

Tornan rolled his violet eyes, “You were going the wrong way you nitwit.”

Daniel gave him a look, and grumbled under his breath, “Nitwit.” he mocked, “I am not a nitwit.” Absently, he jammed the cloth from the dancer into his pocket, “You don’t sire nitwits.”

Oh how the tide turns.