In Where There Is An Unexpected Visit

Agony. Eden spun and stumbled against the wall as she streaked past him. Damn, that pepper spray stung like a bitch! He let loose a cry of pain as he desperately wiped his face. She had gotten straight up his nose, the little fiend! For once in his life, he really wished he wasn't a vampire. Because vampires have a sense of smell about ten times better than polar bears. Yeah, he really wasn't digging the blistering pain in his nose. He fumbled in his coat pocket for his cell phone, flipped it open, and pressed speed dial.

"Hello to you, Star-shine. You talk to her?"

" Doh. She got bee ub duh nobes wid pepper subray, den ran away."

"Tough break. Probably your fault. Where you at?"

"I bunnow, fibur it owut."

"Yeah, yeah, love you too. We're talking about this later, Eden. There should be no reason for her to nail you with the spray."

Eden hung up. Sterling would find him; he always did. Eden wondered how he was going to possibly bear waiting, though. He felt like grating his nose off on the concrete wall his face was currently pressed up against. He closed his eyes, and her angry face appeared in his mind. He smirked. She really was as pretty in real life as she was in his dreams. Too bad she thought he was a rapist. He sighed, banging his head lightly on the wall at his own stupidity. He should have known better, but he had caught her scent and had acted without thinking. Fuck, he had been waiting two hundred years for her, he couldn't mess this up!

"Too late bor dat." He muttered to himself. He rubbed his nose gently, glad the stinging pain was fading a bit. Suddenly, he heard tires squealing on the street behind him. Twin headlights blazed a hole through the lids of his irritated and sensitive eyes. He heard a door slam, and then Sterling whistled.

"Damn. Your face is all swollen."

Eden struggles to rise, holding one arm out to shield himself from the light. He could barely make out Sterling's grinning form against the glare.

"Du park in the streeb?" He asked incredulously.

"Yeah, so get your pale ass over here before someone calls the cops. I'm blocking a lane." Sterling said as he leaned against the car. Eden hobbled over to the passenger side, opened the door, and collapsed against the seat with a sigh. The inside of the car was cool and dark. Ah, blessed heaven. Sterling swung into the driver's seat, shoved the car into reverse, and spun out onto the street. He threw the car in drive before anyone crashed and died, and then grinned at Eden in that very childish way of his.

"So, give me a play by play."

Shane reached into the dashboard for a tissue and blew his nose to clear it.

"I'm glad I went to that Seer about the location, I found her so fast. She was just getting off of work. I asked to speak with her, but she got scared, sprayed me in the face and screamed rape, all before running away."

"I told you she wouldn't like it if it was at night. Humans feel-"

"-humans feel more comfortable in daylight hours because they can't see in the dark, they like crowded places, blah blah blah." Eden recited. "Ster, I've been waiting two hundred years for her to come around. I'm not going to be thinking this all the way through." Eden rubbed his face tiredly. Sterling gave him a weird look.

"You haven't been getting any, have you?" He said in a serious tone. Eden made a face.

"Dude- what? What does that have to do with anything?"

"You're way too stressed. Maybe you should find yourself a nice lady and release some of that tension." Sterling said.

"I'm not going to go sleep with a random woman I barely know!" Eden cried.

"Didn't bother you before."

"Yeah, well, I found my mate, so now it's different." Eden said, turning his head to look out the window. His nose still stung a bit; he was going to need some blood when he got home to help heal the delicate membranes.

Sterling sighed. "Yeah, you found her. Good job, but you know that's only half the game. You have to get her to do all that stupid vampire ritual stuff, and you already made it worse for yourself. Now you have to get her to like you. She probably doesn't even want to see your face again."

"I'm a vampire. Don't chicks dig that shit?"

Blaire was happy to be home. She smiled over her mug of tea as she flipped through the pages of a magazine. Ah, tea. She never understood the whole coffee thing; it just tasted bitter to her. No, she would prefer a nice cup of Earl Grey over any latte, cappuccino, or mocha. She sighed and put her feet up on the table, rubbing her sore thighs.

She had made it home in record time, slammed the door behind her and slid the dead bolt home. She had run through her house like crazy, making sure every window was locked before putting on the kettle and taking off her work clothes. What an eventful day!

Really, she was in shock. In all her years of living in this town, Blaire had never run into any sort of trouble. She'd never been mugged, assaulted, pick-pocketed, or even mildly accosted. It just wasn't her day; she had started off late to class, she had tripped and spilled her orange juice all over her blouse during her break, the library informed her she had thirty dollars worth of overdue book fines, and then she had been almost raped outside of her workplace! She sighed again, running a hand through her short brown hair. Her phone vibrated on the table top. Blaire recognized the familiar number, and picked it up quickly.

"Hey Aislin, what's up?" Aislin Gale had been Blaire's best friend ever since freshmen year. The brassy red-head was the loudest and most forward person Blaire had ever met, and she wasn't afraid to say what she thought. Even if she said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

"Blaire, love, you need to get out more." Aislin never bothered with greetings. She preferred to jump into whatever topic she was thinking of at the moment. She said it elicited more "honest" responses. Blaire grinned at her friend's statement.

"Oh, and why's that?"

"Because I've had the best sex of my life and it was with a total stranger."

"How does that have anything to do with my social life?" Blaire asked, amused.

"Maybe if you went out more, you too could have totally hot stranger sex."

"Thanks but no thanks. I've had enough of strangers today."

"What, did something happen at work?" Aislin fake cooed into the phone.

"Yeah, actually. There was this guy-" Blaire began, but Aislin interrupted.

"Was he hot?"

"What- no- "

"Did he have a nice car?"

"Aisl-

"Was he foreign?"

"No, he almost RAPED ME!" Blaire yelled into the phone. There was silence for a few moments, and then:

"OH MY GAWD, ARE YOU OKAY??? LEMME FIND THAT BASTARD, I'LL SHOW HIM THE MEANING OF PAIN!" Blaire held the phone away from her ear at her friend's outburst.

"I think I already did that; I nailed him in the face with my pepper spray." Blaire was a little smug as she said this.

"That's my girl! But still, if I ever see him, I'll kill him." Aislin said, her tone serious.

"You wouldn't know him if you saw him, I barely got a look at him myself." Blaire mused, trying to remember the scene in the alley. It seemed so long ago.

"Not even a general description?"

"Um….. he was over six feet, not fat, but not really skinny. He had dark hair, um, and his eyes glowed." Blaire's brow furrowed as she tried to remember.

"His eyes glowed?"

"Yeah, I don't know, his eyes seemed to glow, like a cat's."

"Weird."

"Totally."

"Well, I would love to chat some more, but I need to find my underwear." And with that, Aislin hung up. She didn't like good-byes either. Blaire sighed and threw the phone on the cushion next to her. She smiled to herself; trust Aislin to make her feel better in under five minutes. But Aislin had always been like that. She had always been there for Blaire, supporting her through all the though times. When Blaire's parents had died in a car accident, Aislin had come to her apartment every morning to get her out of bed and make her breakfast. Blaire didn't know what she'd do without her.

Not that Blaire didn't have other friends. She enjoyed hanging out with many people, but only a choice few had been allowed into what Aislin had fondly dubbed "Blaire's Circle of Trust." Blaire didn't trust easily, especially guys. When she had first entered college she'd had a series of bad relationships that left her even more wary of the male species. Aislin was mystified by her prude-ness, but Aislin, put as kindly as possible, had made it her goal in life to sleep with as many people as possible before she graduated college and had to get a serious job. She even kept a small book with her where she wrote down her conquests' names and the date, time, and location of the consummation of their brief relationship. Blaire didn't understand it, but she figured everybody had their flaws. Sex was just one thing that Blaire didn't have to worry about.

Blaire glanced at the clock and swore. She hurriedly dumped her tea and ran into the bathroom, squirting toothpaste straight into her mouth. If she didn't get her ass in bed right then she would only get five hours of sleep before class tomorrow. Damn late shift!

Eden sighed as Sterling pulled the car into the driveway. Home, sweet home, Eden thought sarcastically. It was his blood-father's house, and a pretty damn nice one at that, a large ten-bedroom monster with an indoor spa and a kitchen big enough for a family of fifteen. Not that the vampires who lived there used it for anything but a storage room for their stock of emergency blood. Sterling tossed the keys to one of the human servants that staffed the house before wrapping an arm around Eden's shoulders as they strolled towards the house.

"Eden, my friend. I think you just need to relax. How about I treat you to some nice O positive before bed?" Eden laughed as they entered the house. It was dark in the house, for Eden's blood-father didn't like light at all, but neither vampire needed light to see. They made their way to the kitchen, where Eden was surprised to find one of their house-mates, Hazel. She was sitting at the counter and drinking blood from a cup with a straw, reading a large tomb that looked due for a new binding. Her long blonde hair was covering her face, but Eden could easily imagine her expression of concentration, causing her forehead to wrinkle as she pored over the text.

"Hey, Hazel." Sterling said, crossing the kitchen to the oversized refrigerator. Hazel didn't even look up from her book, but merely let out a sigh as a greeting. Eden slid onto a stool next to her and looked at the page of the book over her shoulder. He frowned when he realized he couldn't understand one bit of it, even though he could read in eight languages.

"Hazel, what language is that in?" he asked, curious. Hazel glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before answering.

"Daemon, lesser." She said it as though it was supposed to mean something to Eden, but it didn't. Eden didn't bother questioning her further. He would only get cryptic answers that wouldn't make sense even after weeks of pondering. And yes, he spoke from experience. Hazel, if that was even her real name, was the second oldest vampire in the house. She said she had stopped counting after four hundred, but Eden guessed that she was approaching five hundred. She was quiet and preferred to spend most of her time in academic study. There were periods of time where she would disappear without explanation, but her house-mates had grown used to her enigmatic ways. Eden shrugged and lifted his hand to catch the bag of blood Sterling had tossed his way. Sterling had already bit into his bag, and blood was dripping down his chin. He finished the bag with a hard suck and sped out of the room so fast Hazel had to hold down the pages of her book or lose her place due to whip-lash. Eden heard the sound of the TV start up in the other room. He crossed the kitchen to watch from the doorway as he opened the bag with his teeth. He sighed as the cold taste of blood entered his mouth. He preferred his blood warm, but he hadn't had time to hunt before and he was far too lazy to hunt after he had already gone home.

Eden was considered to be pretty ethical when it came to his food. He made sure his victim was lethargic enough not to feel or remember the bite, and he never took more then what a hospital would take for a blood donation. He wasn't about to go and say he was a saint; far from it. He had killed many people during his vampire existence, and he also wasn't about to say that their faces haunted his sleep or something like that. He just preferred to let his victims live. Others of his kind had more…. interesting…. feeding habits. Many got a kick out of killing people, or thought they were some kind of god and went around killing rapists and murderers of the human sort. They looked down on humans, thinking them no more then cattle.

"Unfortunately most cattle don't carry around cans of pepper spray," he muttered. Sterling looked up from the game questioningly, but Eden just shook his head. He finished the rest of his blood, crumpling the plastic packaging into a ball and throwing it into the incinerator receptacle. He trudged off to his room, planning to take a long nap before he thought about how to approach his mate.

Blaire was wiping out a coffee mug with her back turned on the gathering after-school crowd. She was chewing on her lip, a nervous habit, as she thought about the chemistry midterm her professor had scheduled for next week. She stared off into space as she tried to remember the vocabulary they had gone over last week. What had he said about the water equilibrium constant….? Suddenly, someone whacked her in the back of the head with a towel. She whirled around to find a grinning Aislin.

"No slacking off!" the red-head commanded, pointing her finger at Blaire. "You're not getting paid to stare off into space! What would Mr. Schroeder say?" She said it so loudly that some patrons looked up in alarm. Blaire smiled weakly and shook her head, placing the now-clean mug among the growing pile of clean dishes. In reality, her boss was pretty flexible when it came to the work ethic of his staff. As long as they showed up on time, served the customers at a moderate pace, and didn't drink too much coffee, they could pretty much do what they wanted. Blaire was lucky with her job, especially in its location; it was in walking distance to both the university and her apartment. It was also in a safe enough neighborhood that Blaire had all but forgotten yesterday's incident. The cheery little café was always filled with light, and was popular enough among the local and students as to not feel the threat from the Starbucks down the street.

Blaire was just finishing up the dishes when she happened to glance up and see a familiar figure. Her mouth dropped open in shock. It was the rapist from yesterday! Blaire grabbed Aislin by the back of her apron and dragged her into the store room. Aislin cried out as hot coffee from the cup in her hand sloshed onto her front.

"Blaire, what the fu-" she stopped short when she saw her friend's face. "What's wrong?"

"It's him." Blaire said shortly. She sat down on a box of napkins and drew her knees to her chest. "I know it was him…." Aislin crouched next to her, eyeing the curtain that separated the store room from the front room of the café.

"Calm down. There's no way he would come here …." Aislin said, rubbing Blaire's arm. "Plus, you said last night you didn't get a good look at him. How can you be sure it was him?"

Blaire snatched her arm away, glaring at her supposedly best-friend. "I know what I saw, Aislin. It's him." She dropped her head into her hands. "Oh, God, what does he want? Does he want to finish the job….oh… God…."

"Maybe he just wants to buy coffee." Aislin said, a smile on her lips. Blaire glared at her again.

"He did not come for fucking coffee." she said hotly, glaring in the general direction of her attacker. Aislin stood, brushing off her jeans. She put her hands on her hips as she regarded the curtain.

"Well, I'm going to find out what he wants." She said. She suddenly turned on Blaire before she could interrupt. "What if it was all a misunderstanding? What if he really just wanted to talk to you? I want to find out." And with that, she disappeared, leaving the curtains swinging behind her. Blaire let out a shocked breath before scrambling closer to the curtains. She peered out from the cloth, watching Aislin strut back to the counter without so much as a glance backwards. That stupid ginger! The rapist approached the counter. Blaire tried to glare a hole in the back of Aislin's head as her friend giggled –giggled! - at something the deranged weirdo said. They chatted for a bit more, then Aislin took his order. Aislin put some cups beneath the giant coffee maker before coming back into the store room. She took in Blaire's expression and laughed.

"Oh, Blaire." she said, shaking her head. "He was so normal! He couldn't possibly be a rapist. He was cute and charming."

"Rapists always seem normal when out in public; he doesn't know you're the best friend of the girl he attempted to rape last night!" Blaire whispered hysterically.

Aislin rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll go ask him about it then." She went out again. Blaire pressed her ear to the curtain cracked as soon as the cloth had stopped moving. She heard Aislin approach the counter and remove the cup from under the stream of coffee. She bit her lip in anxiety; what if the rapist decided to go after Aislin too? Should she call the cops? She weighed the options in her head as she heard Aislin snap the top on the Styrofoam cup.

The redhead that was preparing his coffee was quite pretty, Eden mused. He had been surprised that she had been so friendly, considering that she seemed to be good friends with his mate; she kept disappearing into the back where his mate was hiding. He smirked at the thought. His mate. It had a nice ring to it. The redhead handed him his coffee, but when he reached to grab it, she seemed unwilling to let go. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I have a question." She said with a quick grin. He smiled back automatically, his sexy-vampire-seduces-victim instincts kicking in.

"Shoot," he purred. Yes, this girl was really quite pretty. Since he was pretty sure his mate didn't like him, he wondered if she wouldn't mind him taking her friend out for a little dinner one night.

She looked up at him coyly through her lashes. "Are you a rapist?"

Eden spluttered. "Excuse me? Is that some kind of pick-up line?"

"No, just my friend thinks you're a rapist…." She replied, still smiling.

"Um…. does your friend have brown hair, cut about here…." Eden made a gesture at his shoulders. The redhead smiled wider. "Oh…. well, see… I think there's been a misunderstanding…."

The woman leaned over the counter and patted his hand. "Oh, honey, its okay, I already figured she had jumped to conclusions. Don't worry; I'll get her out here right away so you can apologize." She simpered before swaggering into the back room and leaving a shocked Eden still gripping his coffee in midair. He couldn't believe she had just called him "honey". He shook he head; humans were sure getting pretentious. A loud noise came from the store room, followed by the muted sounds of a silent scuffle. He had no doubt his mate was putting up a very good fight. More sounds ensued, and Eden picked up a couple of swear words. Eden kept his face down as he tried to control his laughter; most people usually didn't take too well to seemingly random cackling, and he doubted anyone else in the store had the same supernatural hearing he did. He looked up to see the redhead emerging from the store room, dragging his rather red-faced mate by her arm. She was deposited in front of him and then the friend went to the opposite side of the counter and began to clean dishes, ignoring the waiting line of curious customers.

Eden was suddenly nervous. Last time he had seen this girl she had sprayed him in the face with pepper spray, and he could see her fingers itching to her back pocket, where he could only assume a weapon lay hidden.

"Um, hi." He said hastily, deciding it was better to try and make her forget about the incident last night. He really did want this girl to like him, because, you know, he was only going to spend the rest of eternity with her. God, even saying it in his head made him feel old. "I'm Eden. Eden Seaver." He held out a hand, which she eyed as though it was a live snake. He retracted his hand quickly to run a hand through his hair. He hadn't been this nervous around a girl since his first date in 1802. She must really hate him, if the way she was glaring at him was any indication. Suddenly, the friend cleared her throat loudly, as if prompting the girl to speak. The girl glared at her friend, who glared back. They continued this glaring for some time until the red-head made a chopping motion with her hand, breaking the other girl's gaze. She turned back to Eden, directing her frown to the floor.

"Blaire Remmings." She forced out. Eden smiled weakly.

"Hey, Blaire, I think that there's been a misunderstanding, regarding last night…" he trailed off when he noticed her eyes narrowing.

"I think I understood the situation pretty well. Are you insulting my intelligence?" She demanded, staring him straight in the eye. This prompted a some-what affectionate smile on his part, glad that his woman had some fire to her, but that only seemed to enrage her more. "You expect me to believe that you just so happened to be walking down the street late at night and wanted to stop for a little chat? Not only are you a rapist, but a liar as well." She stamped her foot a bit at that last part, and Eden cast a worried glance around the café at the same time. A few customers had looked up at the word "rapist", but they hastily looked away when he cast his eye at them. He looked back at Blaire and adopted the voice he used on humans to get his way.

"Let's be clear here. You sprayed me before I could even explain who I was or what I wanted, and that's no one's fault but your own." he said forcefully. "I'm NOT a rapist."

Blaire huffed, and then raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? If you're not lying, which I still thing you are, and you're not really a rapist, then what the hell do you want from me? Seems pretty fishy that you wanted to talk to me late at night in a dark alley…"

Eden opened his mouth before quickly shutting it again. He knew if he just blurted out the truth, that she was his one and only mate, the only woman able to bear his undead children, she probably wouldn't take it too well right now, especially with that look on her face.

"I'm a colleague of your father's," he began.

"My father is dead." She replied sharply.

Crap, Eden thought. "Um… yes, I'm a former colleague." He said, thinking quickly. "I have a message to pass on."

"Why did you wait until now? He's been dead for years."

Crap again. "Yes, well, he said that he wanted me to tell you when you were older, and then you moved away so I had to track you down…"

Blaire was still eyeing him somewhat suspiciously, but Eden was glad to see that her eyebrows had drifted back into slightly normal positions. She chewed on her lip thoughtfully.

"Okay. Let's pretend I believe you. What was the message?" she said.

"It's… of a delicate nature, not something to be discussed idly." Eden replied. He had this planned out now. "Um, would you meet me for dinner? At…" he quickly scanned his brain for restaurants he'd seen on the drive up. "Lucetti's? At seven?"

Blaire chewed on her lip a little before replying. "I get off work at eight today."

"Alright, how about eight thirty?"

"…fine. I'll meet you there."

Inside, Eden was both crying with relief and singing for joy. Having her meet him later both showed a growing trust in his mate and stall time so he could think up what to say.

"Well, then, see you then." He almost bowed, but caught himself in time, ending with a short nod before turning and exiting the café. He must be truly stressed if he was reverting back to his old mannerisms. It was time to call Sterling, come up with a plan, and make reservations for two at eight-thirty, in that order.

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