My eyes had adjusted to the low light, and I examined the man before me. His minor stocky frame loomed over the coffee table, but I didn’t really care.

“Don’t just sit there.” Completely miffed, dragging his hand down his small pudgy face, the pace stuttered and came to a halt. I just continued to watch him with a stoic expression. “Are you deaf or something?”

I rolled my eyes and head back, counting the tiles on the ceiling of the lounge. My fingers played with the cover of the box, tempted to open it, to reveal what curled in its darkness. The reality of the situation was a bit more dramatic than the ceiling tiles, and the meaty man continued his glare.

“I was just walking around and happened upon this girl laying in the snow with this box.” The petite blonde in the corner seemed a bit nervous, eyeing the man cautiously. I just chuckled. This man wasn’t scary, more like a bug under my shoe.

“Listen,” he grabbed my chin, snapping my head forward so my eyes could fall on his face. “We don't’ want your kind around this facility. Go defile some other people's lives.”

A smirk dawned my lips as I placed a single hand on his wrist. “Do you understand whom you are speaking to?”

“Probably some low life girl of the-”

The room shook just under the feet of the man, and I just continued to smirk.

“Do you understand that bad men go to a bad place, and that you are a bad man?”

Something turned on his face, from annoyed to full of that dreadful fear I always looked for in the eyes of my prey.

“I just don’t want any trouble, miss.” Looking down at his feet where the ground started to split apart, tears began to flow like rivers. The hand around my throat fell and he continued to sink lower into the quicksand abyss that opened below him. I smiled as the crack closed up just as the top of his balding head fell through.

From the corner of the room, a dark chuckle resonated to the couch.

“My queen,” the darkest shadow turned, growing in shape to outline the shadow of the wiry girl now shaking in the corner. Watching her freeze, eyes roll back and fall into the arms of the solid man formed of darkness, I felt my muscles began to relax.

“Oh, what a feast.” The man’s dark hair fell just below his ear, but blew lightly in a breeze not existent in this closed room. “We are quite happy with you, and hope to do business with you again.” The man hoisted the girl over the shoulder of his priceless black suit coat, and vanished back into the shadows. Left alone again, a sigh slipped through my lips.

A bit of a rough day, huh? The box whispered, warming under her fingertips.

“Not exactly an easy one, that is for sure.” Brushing the corner of its lid, she pulled at the latch and released the beast inside.

“Ah, air is good.” The mist seeping from the endless container solidified into a man- more like a boy lounged on one of the chairs near the couch I rested on. “Its been a little too long.”

“Maybe, but its not like I’ve really locked you in there.” The hand running through his short blonde hair slid down his chiseled face to rest upon his chin, nearly as the pudgy man had done to me before.

“He actually touched you. You could have set him aflame, melted his very bones, but you like to play too much.”

“Alex, I didn’t play. I entertained.”

“Honestly, you paid those shadow whores. A debt is a debt to them, and to you it seems.”

I let my mouth stay closed and continued to watch the moving city out the floor to ceiling windows. The silence was welcoming, I could have stayed like this all day.

“The sun will break soon, and you need to rest.” He was holding out a single hand to me now. Long, delicate fingers outstretched, I took his gentle hold and allowed him to pull me up off the tacky leather. “Maybe I should carry you over my shoulder too. You seemed a little inclined to when the shadow man did it.”

A blush colored my pale cheeks, one red enough it could have been seen in the low light. With a slight chuckle, the beast licked his perfectly fanged teeth, eyes changing from red to sharp green. Jealousy was never easy for him to hide.