Doe's POV:

I fought uselessly against the hand pinning my wrists to the ground above my head.

That familiar, infuriating giggle sounded from above me, coming from the woman whose body was effortlessly keeping my body still and secure against the floor.

I dared to meet those golden eyes through the tears I was desperately blinking away.

Only to be met with a content smirk and a look in her eyes that told me she was thoroughly enjoying the scene before her.

"Aren't you tired by now, pet?" She spat the last disdainful word, the five individual claws that had already pierced the skin of my neck burying themselves deeper.

Trying and failing to hide the strain that feeling caused, I could feel the warmth of my own blood trailing down the skin of my neck, and taste it in the back of my mouth.

I choked back my need to cough, only imagining what that would do to the claws already in my skin.

"We've been at this for far too long," her words echoed around the space surrounding us as soon as they left her mouth, "We both know how this is going to end, delaying the inevitable is only going to hurt you more,"

The last word echoed louder as her fingers flexed again and her claws sank even deeper

An excruciating cry forced itself from my lips this time, the sound garbled from my own blood rising in my throat.

Still, I thrashed again, whether it worsened the wounds in my neck or not.

I was a goner either way.

The vampire on top of me snarled, thoroughly annoyed by my disobedience.

Then slowly she inched herself down, her face only a few inches from mine.

"Your obstinance is going to be your downfall," She growled, her grip on my wrists turning painful.

I knew that.

It was something I had accepted a long time ago.

With that small bit of determination building, I finally released the cough that was building within my throat.

The vampire flinched as my action caused a splatter of my blood to stain itself upon her flawless skin.

The image of the furious line between her brows was short-lived.

Without another word and with a quick jerk, her hand pulled itself from my neck, fatally tearing the skin and whatever else she had internally punctured out and away from my body.

My eyes snapped open nearly as fast as my hand found the front of my neck, my opposing elbow hurrying to push me up from my side laying position.

My racing heart and heavy breaths seemed to have translated from that hellish dream, a phantom pain still radiating from my neck despite knowing that it was intact.

I even hesitated a second before forcing myself to swallow through my dry throat, reveling at the lack of that metallic taste.

Still, that wasn't enough to calm me down.

As much as I wished it was, as much as I wished that the realization that what just happened wasn't real, my body never wanted to cooperate with me.

I immediately kicked the blankets off of me, already beginning to feel myself starting to sweat.

Whether it was from my illness or panic, I didn't know, nor really want to know, I just needed it to stop as fast as possible.

That and the internal anxiety that was still rushing throughout my body.

My hand lingered on my throat for a bit too long, before I eventually forced it to drop, and began focusing on slowing my breaths.

My god...

Nightmares weren't new to me, but lately, they've just been getting exponentially worse.

They never resulted in my dying in them until just recently.

I paused for a moment, rethinking the ones I could remember.

Every time I died to her claws in my throat...

Out of all the ways to die, why like that?

It just seemed so... specific.

I swallowed hard again, cursing the fact that my next breath came out with a tremor.

I hoped that maybe my current freedom from Layla for a bit would have meant my dreams would follow the trend.

'It's just a dream' I began repeating to myself.

In the process of convincing myself of that, the realization that I wasn't going back to bed any time soon crept up on me as well.

After a few moments of calming my nerves, I turned my head towards Xander's bed, mostly to check if he was awake to hear any of my internal panic.

To my surprise, he wasn't there.

My head then turned to the bathroom, a very dim light catching my eyes from the corner of my vision.

Just a little bit more and I spotted him still at his desk, staring intently at the stack of papers and the small lamp there on the lowest setting.

Not that he really needed light to begin with.

He still had the pen in his hand despite the fact that he rarely used it, and he was currently tapping the end of it against his bottom lip in his forward-leaning position.

I squinted at him.

It didn't even seem like he'd realized I was awake yet. Which was a good thing, but I didn't have to check the time to know that it was abnormally late for him to still be doing this.

Yet here he was. His tired posture and hair that's halfway fallen out of the tie that was still in it.

But, I'll take it for what I could make out of it.

A distraction.

Carefully, I maneuvered myself up and out of my cage, his eyes still staying keen on what was in front of him.

I took light steps over to where he was, not necessarily trying to sneak up on him, but not wanting to break the quiet atmosphere quite yet.

I got up right behind the thick leather chair, peering curiously over his shoulder.

Jeez he probably wasn't even halfway done.

"You're still not done?"

"Holy shit!" His entire body jumped in surprise, the chair itself suddenly jerking to the left away from me

I didn't try to hide the amusement from showing on my face, staring specifically at the claws on his fingers that I 'scared' out of him.

All of which relaxed and retracted as soon as he realized what happened.

"Arent you supposed to be the species with the world's most advanced senses?" I teased.

"Arent you supposed to be asleep?" he returned, bringing his chair back to where it was.

I took the opportunity to rest my arms on the top of it before setting my head on top of them, peering down further to his remaining workload.

"In theory, yes, but I woke up to you over here and the only thing you have going for you is your sleep schedule, so I wanted to investigate."

He let out a short, tired laugh, setting the pen down

"Oh yeah?" he leaned back, the height of this chair causing him to turn his head up to face me, "Find anything interesting yet?"

My brows furrowed.

"Yeah, I found you trying to use me to procrastinate further. What time is it anyway?"

He gave another chuckle before answering.

"Sometime around four. I couldn't sleep for the life of me for some reason, so I figured I should try to get more of this done."

I found the fact that he said he couldn't sleep to be strange.

He looked exhausted, which wasn't a common look for him.

He seemed a bit distraught ever since Layla left, but I don't know if it was bad enough to keep him up all night.

"And how much have you gotten done?" I questioned.

His eyes flickered between his desk and me, "Oh you know... some." his tone was anything but confident.

I rolled my eyes before standing up straight, taking a step beside him to get a better estimate on what 'some' was.

After some quick looking, I noticed something strange.

These papers each held the detailed records of every citizen that lived here and was eligible for the blood donation.

Usually, it was Nico's job to go through these and search for some sort of abnormality.

But the just slightly thicker stack to the left showed me that Xander had already gone through most of these.

"This is... Nico's job." I started as a slight question, turning back to him.

Surprised to see a similar sadness in his eyes when Layla leaves after brushing him off at the mention of his brother.

Anyone else probably wouldn't have noticed such a subtle change in just one part of his face.

But that was a look I've seen take another one over countless times before.

"Yeah..." He began quietly, "He's got a lot going on right now, and Lord Bronwyn apparently dumped more on him last minute so I thought... yknow."

In the time I've lived with him, I've learned when and when not to bring up a touchy subject.

Or I guess how to bring it up.

Especially when it came to his ever-crumbling relationship with his brother.

"I bet he'll appreciate it." I decided to say.

"You think?" There was a new hope in his tone that was almost sad to hear.

"Yeah. If the fact that you actually finished your work on time doesn't shock him to death, the fact that you did his too definitely will." I said, trying to bring back the lighter tone.

The corner of his mouth rose a bit before he leaned forward.

"You're probably right. How do you feel by the way?" He asked.

He'd asked that a lot today.

I did feel better but I still didn't want to admit that.

Even if he bought me more time without having to worry about Layla, I still didn't fully believe He was going to be able to hold her off till the bloodmoon.

If I had to try to get more time myself, then I will.

"About the same as the last time you asked," I responded.

Luckily he accepted that answer with no further questioning and no move to check my fever himself.

"You should try to get some more rest." He said instead.

"That's kind of hypocritical given tonight's situation, ya think?"

His smile came again before he slowly pushed himself up and stood.

"I'm actually feeling better now, so I'm gonna try to take my own advice and see if it works."