Doe's POV:

Xander stood in front of the window, staring.

I could see the deep maroon moon from where I sat on the bed, both of us just waiting until the effects finally kicked in.

Even when we did this the first time, he insisted that I sat here, directly on the spot where he slept every single night.

I didn't question it, especially since it beat being pinned to the floor or wall whenever Layla had me.

My knees drew closer to my chest and I leaned forward to hug them, turning my head towards the vampire before resting against my knees.

He'd been motionless and nearly silent for almost 30 minutes now, his shoulders squared rigidly.

The only thing I could hear was his forced deep and rhythmic breaths.

Trying to keep his cool until the effects began their takeover on his body

Though try as he might, there were still things that were blatantly giving him away.

The flex and relaxation of the claws at his sides, for one thing.

My head slowly lifted as his next long exhale came with a tremor.

It was starting.

That thought became confirmed promptly.

His following breath came out with a quiet and drawn-out, "Okay," I guess to help psych himself up.

I don't know how much it helped, judging by the clawed hands that reached back to grab his shirt.

He pulled it off with a swift tug, discarding it onto the window sill only inches in front of him.

With the bloodmoon came wings. Wings that will shred through anything in their path once they get released.

His head hung low, hands running a path through his hair and stopping at the base of his neck.

The controlled breathing began again.

He tries to get this done as quickly as possible but has explained to me that the effects have to be at a certain point before he can take care of it.

With just the beginning of it now showing, I could only guess that it would only be a few minutes before that time would come.

I released my own drawn-out exhale. straightening one of my legs and setting my arms behind me for support.

There still wasn't any kind of nervousness churning through me.

Not yet at least.

I kept my gaze on him, now with the lack of a shirt, kept me examining the pale skin on his back.

The tension he held now showed more than ever, from his broad shoulders down to his relatively slimmer waist, the taught indents were visible.

I eyed over the scene before me, comparing it to the first blood moon I'd had with him.

He'd changed a lot, physically, over the time that I've known him, and I could only assume that it was just an extra grab for Layla's attention.

But you'd think that if that was the case, he'd actually show it off.

That he'd actually allow it to be seen, instead of keeping it behind the long-sleeved, and more often than not, loose-fitting clothes.

The same type of clothes ended up on him no matter the weather, despite the very wide variety I knew he had in his closet.

He'd only change his pattern for special occasions, or to sleep. Leaving me to believe that out of the people that he did it for, it was instead me who ended up being the one who saw how he'd changed the most often.

Which, given our living situation, wasn't that surprising.

It wasn't much, or I guess it wasn't too much. He wasn't bulky but had enough to where you could see the muscle indentation whenever he moved.

Especially in his shoulders, arms, and back as he returned his arms to his side.

The veins in his arms and hands that were now in view popped out more than usual with the dark two-inch claws now staying out.

My nerves finally took hold of me as I kept my gaze there, images of my prior nightmares flashing through my mind without warning.

The skin on my throat tingled, and I tried to ignore it and instead wonder why now of all times his claws had that kind of effect on me.

It's not like they were a rare sight to see.

Perhaps it was just the night, mixed with the fact that they were rarely consistently out for this long.

I gave in and rubbed the skin there, just to get that feeling to go away before returning my hand to where it was before.

His head finally rose, turning to me just enough to where I could make out one of his eyes through his hair.

The panic and caution that sat in them this morning were nothing compared to what I could see now.

His breathing was now noticeably more sporadic, yet the effects still hadn't fully reached him.

He was still in there.

"How's it going so far?" I asked casually, trying to keep the mood light despite everything.

The brow I could see rose at my attempt.

"So far so good," he lied, trying to mimic my tone.

Emphasis on trying.

"Is it gonna be bad this time," I inquired.

His brows furrowed, trying to gauge the answer from what he could already feel.

"I can't tell yet," He concluded, his voice tight, "And I won't be able to until..." He swallowed hard.

Until it's already taken him.

We both knew that already. I was just hoping that light conversation would help him relax.

It didn't do either of us any good tonight for him to be this worried.

His whole strategy depended on giving in right when his instincts attempted to take over.

A difficult task, given the fact that the vampiric instincts that wanted to take over were the same instincts that convinced him and every other vampire to fight it.

They viewed themselves as a danger every bloodmoon, a weird paradox that leads to most vampires dreading every time this night came along.

Xander most of all.

"It's going to been soon though," His eyes flickered to the moon once again, his next words coming out with his next breath, "Very soon,"

I just nodded, hoping that my calmness would aid in his.

A selfish action, but I was convinced that I'd most likely be fine either way.

"I-I'll try to make this as quickly as possible, just-" His entire body grew unnaturally taught within the blink of an eye, his pupils contracting till they were barely visible.

Then he was nothing but a blur.

I couldn't catch my gasp in time, feeling my head and back slam against the surface of the bed from two hard holds at the center of my upper arms.

My panic rose and eyes squeezed shut instinctually at the feeling alone. Of being trapped under him.

His rough grip pinning me down with his knees pressing against the outside of my legs.

My stomach twisted so fast it was painful, and my pulse shot up with it.

'Stop stop stop!' I repeated to myself, trying to regain some sort of jurisdiction over the reactions that just appeared without my control.

Yet again, I was reacting as if the vampire on top of me was someone else, and I couldn't even regain my composure enough to begin to convince myself otherwise.

I knew what was happening, but the rest of me didn't seem to care.

It was a feeling I knew quite well. A feeling I despised more and more each time it happened.

How she had ruined so much of me that I couldn't even control my own body in situations where she wasn't even here.

How my brain immediately pin-pointed every single place his body was touching mine and dispised it, wriggling in hopes that it would help but knowing that it wouldn't.

I forced my eyes to open, to see the reality of who it was, and aid what I couldn't control in realizing what was really happening.

Even if these actions weren't his own, he still wasn't even close to being her.

His eyes caught mine the moment I opened them, yet not for long.

Through the wavy hair that hung in front of them, the slight shaking of his head and the quick and hard blinks, I could see his pupils fighting between thinning and rounding.

His breaths now came quick and ragged through his mouth, and I could feel through his grip on me the tremor in his body.

He was fighting it, and I realized that even more so in the sudden awareness that I couldn't feel his claws against my skin.

That he somehow managed to retract them before the moon forced him to pounce.

My nails dug into the blanket below me once his pupils remained thin, and his head stilled.

I just stared back at the eyes that now held too much of that light green, taking in the look that never looked right on him.

His shoulders still rose and fell with every wheezing breath that left him.

A strained groan rose from his chest second before his back arched violently, his head falling onto the pillow beside mine.

The sickening sound of tearing skin filled the room as his wings tore free, a barely contained yelp followed by a long agony-ridden hiss leaving his throat.

A cry of my own followed, the feeling causing his hold on me to turn painful.

My eyes squeezed shut again, arms bending the best they could at the elbows and hands pushing at his ribs in a vain impulse to get him off of me.

It didn't work, and the squeezing pressure of his hands around my arm was quickly getting worse.

The squeezing promptly felt like a crushing, yet his claws were nowhere to be felt.

Even so, the panic I'd tried so hard to regain freed itself yet again.

"Xander!" I whimpered a plea burst out of me, knowing it would take such minimal effort for him to shatter the bone on a night like this.

The ease of him releasing me came unbelievably fast, the multiple sounds of tearing fabric immediately finding my ears as his claws mangled the blanket and the sheets not even an inch away from where my arm laid.

The smallest sigh of relief left me as my eyes peeked open again spotting the large bat-like wings that now shaded me from the light above.

Such beautiful things to come on such an awful night.

The smooth skin where the new bones appeared were sporting the bluish-grey color of slate, the membrane between being a light silver, and the sharp bone-colored talon that extended at the second bend.

All of which trembled as the man above me just barely rose himself again, wings folding quick and tight against his back.

My head tilted towards my rapidly raised shoulder the second I felt his breath against the skin of my neck in another visceral reaction to block him and protect myself.

Forcing my shoulder to relax and head to turn and allow him access took almost everything that I had in me.

He needed to get this done as fast as possible.

He's been fighting it for long enough.

I could feel him steadily inch closer, his trepid breaths loud in my ear.

"I'm sorry," The words were quick and broken, like that was the last moment he had left to say something.

Yet I could feel the anguish beneath them.

I could feel the genuineness of them, which made me believe that it was coming only from him.

Not from some other underlying reason.

A lump grew in my chest, the blanket beneath me bunching in my hands.

"I know," I whispered back.

That must have been the last thing he heard before he let it take him entirely, closing the rest of the space between him and my skin.

I muffled my cry, not allowing it to pass through my lips as his fangs pierced my skin.

There was no tear, no shredding pain that I was so used to experiencing followed, just the slight jolt that gave my blood an escape route.

That fact aided in my fight into relaxation.

With Xander, the initial bite was the worst of it.

Little by little I managed to force the tension from my body and allowed myself to sink into the comfort of the mattress below.

I listened to his slow, methodical gulps, and the brisk exhale that followed.

Then that usual purr that always appeared when they take live blood.

I knew vampires purred often, but I've only ever heard his in situations like this.

His had a deep crackle to it, and I would even consider it soothing in the right circumstance.

It sometimes made me wish that I'd hear it in a different one, just to know for sure.

With him this close, and with my mind finally not racing, I realized something.

He did smell nice, courtesy of my prior suggestion.

I took that sweet yet oddly smoky aroma he had and used it to my advantage.

Use it to help further remind me and solidify to that small part of me that still couldn't help but be terrified the fact of whose fangs it was.

That it wasn't her.

I put that thought on repeat in my brain, until the majority of me finally believed it.

My eyes stared at the wings above us, watching them slowly unfurl and slacken across his back and the bed, encasing us beneath them without actually touching me.

It created a strange sort of warmth, trapping my body heat between us and keeping it there.

That minute yet familiar buzzing sensation I got whenever a certain amount of blood was taken from me began traveling throughout my body.

It was usually the first and only symptom I'd get when it was him.

As if proving my point, I noticed his shoulders gradually slump, and a quick glance saw his claws begin to retract.

My grip on the blankets followed his example right before the sudden raising of his wings and straightening of his spine notified me that he was back.

His fangs were carefully ejected from me with a gasp.

A quick flap of his wings and he was sitting on his knees that were now intentionally no longer pressing against me.

The gust of which blew back my hair.

His now red eyes searched me, his pupils thankfully having dilated.

"Welcome back," I spoke, my voice coming out quieter than I wanted it to.

He took a second to catch his breath.

"I... you..." He panted out, eyes widening as soon as he realized he hadn't sealed the wound.

I found his panic somewhat amusing, turning my head as soon as he licked his thump, to allow him to do just that.

It was amusing, but at the same time, I still didn't like his worry focusing on me for too long.

"See?" I began playfully as he pulled his hand back, "I told you we'd be fine,"

"You're okay?" he asked, that wary pinch still showing between his brows.

I guess he wasn't quite ready to match my tone yet.

The reality was that this was the best I've felt after getting my blood taken in a while.

Since the last bloodmoon to be exact.

"I'm fine, Xander," I responded, pushing myself up into a sitting position and bringing my legs up so that they were no longer under him, "You handle these well,"

He visibly relaxed at my words, lowering how he sat now that I wasn't beneath him.

I'd even bet and say he checked to see if I was lying.

"You sure," his voice was calmer, but not entirely, "I could have sworn I-"

He stopped, wings folding and eyes locking onto my right upper arm.

I followed his gaze, immediately spotting the already reddened ring that almost perfectly showed his hand.

As well as the twin mark on the other.

He cursed under his breath, looking at it like it was a stab wound.

It'd probably end up being a sick bruise, but that had the potential to end so much worse.

If that's the worse thing that came out of this then I'd still consider it a success.

"Oh please," I began rubbing the mark with the opposing hands.

It was sore, but I refused to let it show at the moment.

"This is nothing, I promise."

He didn't look like we bought it, eyes still scanning me.

I blinked at him in annoyance.

So, since this is what we were doing apparently, I deadpanned and scanned him back, giving him a taste of his own medicine.

I casually set my gaze across his collar bone, then at a dramatically slow pace drew it down across his pecks and down through the finely-detailed muscles down his stomach.

The way that he was sitting showed him off well, and the weight that his wings added to his upper body helped accentuate it as well.

I finally finished on those two odd angled lines at his hips that lead into his sweats.

"Wh- Hey!" he exclaimed once he finally noticed, one of his wings bending to cover himself.

I grinned at his reaction, finally having broken him out of that serious mood he was in.

Took him long enough.

Any more worry or pity from him and I was gonna start getting annoyed.

"What? I was just making sure that you're okay," I chastised, "come one Xander you're way too serious when you should be celebrating the fact that we made it to eight."

His wing lowered enough to where I could see his face, repeating the words I said to him this morning with the grin that he finally surrendered to me.

"We made it to eight, good for us."