It felt different here, perhaps not in the usual sense.. But different in the way when knowledge so seeped within the cracks that existed once before. Hearing that tale she had known only a few chosen crumbs of, placed before her before this. Risque had always chosen to focus on what he could become and the man that stood before her rather than the feeble roots that hardly meant a thing. Risque was so very certain that nothing truly existed before her, especially now. But here this rotten place stood.... With that unsanitary outhouse on the hill reminding her of everything she chose to allow unspoken.. After all, even with all of this.... the life that truly mattered was one where she was at its epicentre. She was the one who had plucked him from that battle field and showed him a new way, her way. Opened his very eyes... of what it truly meant to be an apex predator.

But being surrounded by his past, was suffocating within that flimsy little cabin... an obscure spec on the map in the world and yet.. How dare it have.... Power. A power in which she intended to destroy entirely... within him... to incinerate that marred spec that dwelled within him as though... she could. How easy it would have been to destroy it... and yet... this way was far more effective... one that was not merely symbolic but deeper. It was so hard to imagine him here, even though that crooked picture on the wall say otherwise. Even restored, how it managed to stand was baffling in itself, it could barely contain him now, let alone... her. Her own home in France had lasted far longer than this and still its fortress-like walls stood, although, in what condition she hardly knew.

She saved him. There was no question in her mind that she had. He admitted it himself, praised her for it.. He was nothing but starved of potential of a wasteland, like a unfertile farmer's field there was no hope for him to grow.. To rise above the rest like he did by her side. She had shown him another way, revealed the curtain of something so much more.

The midnight haired vampire perched upon that hazardous bag of bricks of a bed, listened to his words of her mate as she watch him unravel himself before her like a red carpet, his emotions coiled tight as if one false move would have him lost to some rage flooded oblivion.

Just as she had intended.

She had set up the perfect stage and even he could barely resist, with that agitation that grew and pounded like a pulse of a bomb inside of him. So reactive and she knew it... because she made him that way. She knew the beast she crafted, knew those buttons she installed within him in places only she knew how to press. Yet even if she dissected him layer by layer, she had truly not paid any heed to his very beginnings, much like she paid little heed in her own. What did it matter.. And yet why did she care to know his now?

Darcy may have come from weak stock.. But she had come from traitors. A different form of weakness... One Risque had even less semblance of respect for.

The discomfort of that old decrepit caretaker was evident, momentarily forgotten like the useless fly he was. His old heart fragile but still beat with a fear he had probably not known for some time. His old feeble fingers desperately toying with the papers in his arthritic hands. He was hardly worth hearing that story and yet.. He had been spreading candy dipped lies, sensationalizing a story that was not his own. He was lucky he was already on death's door that she lost interest in destroying him, as it would only be a mercy rather than enjoyment for her. Instead, surprisingly, she found herself far more focused on that story, folding it upon itself, this true knowledge, nestled inside of her lover. How even though she would never admit it outloud or have it show.. It intrigues her. Damn this place to ruin.

She listened to that tale he wove, the man... surprisingly a good story teller... She had heard it once before vaguely.. And unimportant as it was then.. But now.... It felt anew.. Revitalized within his southern twang. He had built a name for himself, one far better than his human form could ever... give him. Yet even still... it paled in comparison until now. Darcy had not only evolved from human to vampire.... But once more when his world completely changed... when he met her. A mystery in itself... how she didn't end him where he stood and there after.

Risque's voice pooled with that shack, that rarely offered compliment spoken after that tale had settled from the dust she had all but kicked up. Ah the past lingered like a vague phantom forever there... even here... while Darcy's seething ghosts seemed to snap at his heels... her own decided to surface. But one fact, blatant to her now, was both their families however, different circumstances they had been betrayed... unforgivingly so. Traitorous scum. It was fortunate... that family did not define you by any means...The only disappointment she felt within her lover's tale was that he had not seeked out his own retribution upon them. It made little sense to her.. Because she knew without a figment of a doubt that he would now.. If given the chance.

Still she allows the poisonous trickle of her own enticing words to drive her mate onward, that agitation still fresh and strong even after he spoke. His past only fueling that brewing cataclysmic storm inside of him. He needed to be.

How she enjoyed watching that enticing rage bubble inside of him, so close to spilling over as she urged him onward as if diligently tending to it.. She could not take all the credit, it had been brewing the moment they stepped upon southern soil after all... Yet even then, she knows she could calm him, her weapon is one she wields so well... and yet she prefers to push toward that looming precipice for reasons of her own. One way or another there would always be demons to face.

How he was like a loaded gun whose trigger she stroked even now. It was then she could see it... barely. A flash within his eyes as he bossed that caretaker around, listing his own demands. A spark... to set that chain reaction. An even more peculiar question left his lips before he vanished after the caretaker had left. Religion. What did religion have anything to do with it? The woman had long turned her back on what she considered a way to control... the masses.

Darcy nothing short of a grenade of destruction then. Good. Let them burn. His family had long since died and yet there were still remains within that sad little cemetery that acted like an honoured shrine. Nothing more than crooked little tombstones standing upon a hill. Darcy was hellbent on obliterating every last piece of it. Surely, she thought it would have been the house first, or even the caretaker himself.

Yet it was the graves he seeked to destroy... a symbolic gesture of killing one's past that she found a dark poetic justice. He looked nearly unstoppable, delightfully unhinged within the moonlight, as he allowed all that rage to unfurl around him. She would not soon forget the way he looked then... His own power bleeding chaos into the night, destroying the once serenity of this ranch. That sound carried well off into the distance, echoing as he became destruction itself. He shot into the soil.... As if it were a person. While the caretaker was seeing to his instructions, Risque drew toward the madness she had help tend to. He hadn't even noticed her still presence with the bottle of moonshine swaying between her fingertips.. As if it were there for a means to celebrate that destruction or... if... somewhere buried within the ancient ruin of her soul was an ounce of care. A way to smooth over the wreckage she was but a beacon to.

So much poetent rage flooded through him, he was but a second short of digging up their bones and destroying them too. Risque the hellish queen had seen enough, afterall, this was nothing but madness if she did not take control. How anyone should have feared the man before her in this state now, he practically vibrated in violent warning. A state she was nothing but fascinated with and drawn to, as if she could sip it like a fine wine. In that moment she forgot her own hunger.. She was certain this could fuel her endlessly. How she desired to harness it if she could.

He had the nerve to flash his fangs at her, and it was her own purpose filled intent that saw to the stifling of her instant punishment.. Her own body although deceptively serene she was ready to deal with that rage in an instant... should he decide to use it as a weapon against her. Yet she knew him.. He wouldn't dare even whisper a jagged little thorn her way. She saw that look within his eyes, a look of a beast gone entirely feral.. How fun it would be to play with him now.. If only that were her plan.. He stared at her, his chest visibly rising and falling with his breath. She could see the way his eyes melted back to reality to the present as it focused upon her, recognition danced within them, melting slowly to his subconscious and reality.. His lips concealed those defiant demonic fangs. That perfect look upon her face spoke the words she responded to his full grown vampiric temper tantrum with. 'Are you done?' If only he saw the flicker of amusement within her eyes.... Something so small and distant.. A fragment lost as she took that step forward.

She approached him and it was almost painfully quiet once more the sound of crickets chirped distantly as though the world had stopped for but a moment. Darcy did not move save for that breathing as she glided with perfect sinuous ease in tune with it. Her words intentionally weave through him like a needle in his mind as she possesses him in a way, her hand feeling that delightful tension within his body. So much violence still stirred beneath his flesh, how intoxicating it was. She trailed down his rigid spine, his skin seemed to respond as always, as if it were forever reaching for her very touch. Oh how she almost wishes he would attempt to strike but she knew she had him. Neatly nestled in her little palm, it was a pity she didn't have an army for him to destroy. He would have cut through them seamlessly, she was certain of it. She could feel that war of emotions as if it were some sweet ambrosia she could devour. Her words are as hypnotic as her gaze as she urges him to kill that part of himself that still remained. After all... that past was nothing but baggage she refused to allow him to carry any more, after all, he was hers.. Not this... man anymore.

Darcy devoutly uttered words as she coils around him, the devil in his ear and yet... somehow it only served to make him a better man. Yet even then, all she heard was that she was right. Of course she was. "I am." She uttered without any shadow of a doubt. Those words were quieter now as there was no need for it. Perhaps she needn't even speak those words allowed as it could have been felt.

It was like she melded with his soul in that very moment.

One grave left. It still stood defiantly. The last piece of Darcy's past that remained as far as she was concerned. The hellish queen held his strings as his gaze sliced to the moonlit bathed stone as if in the spotlight. Everything else was reduced to dust and rubble around it. It was clear.. What she wanted from him. Killing the last evocative symbolic piece of his past that remained. She had never seen him like this before and how then she nearly wanted to run her hands through it like it was a curious mist, it was one of the most beautiful things she had witnessed.

She moved to perch upon one of those broken stones while she watched him unfold before her very eyes. He hardly hesitated when he funnelled all that potent fuel into that kick that obliterated in what seemed like a million fragments, as though it could have been reduced to dust in an instant. It sprayed everywhere, showering debris splayed across the land, destroyed, obliterated. The last tie to this life, nothing more. A slow tug of her lips seemed to almost into a wicked smile before they were once again interrupted, that look stolen right from her lips. How she didn't hear his slow, loud disjointed foot falls until now, far too invested in this mostly poetic moment that he destroyed. The caretaker's cry is what drew that attention onto that cursed little decrepit man. She hardly moved to stand, the man was no threat, holding that paper, pen and book within his trembling hands. Darcy moved to face him as though one touch of his finger could end him entirely. That energy dissipated from him then, slowly. It was a pity she couldn't play with that darkness inside of him then.

Darcy moved with deadly purpose toward the man snatching that deed from him. She had all but anticipated what he was going to do next..... It was like he fully intended to shred him apare with his bare hands, only to take that pen and paper. The man's trembling hardly ceased.. She was certain he was going to take that land back only to destroy it next, like he did to the graveyard that possessed his family.

The look upon her mate then was entirely unreadable, even to her. How, curious. To her surprise he glimpsed over the paper and signed before handing it back to the old man forcefully who stumbled backward, somehow, able to catch himself before he toppled over himself. Darcy parted his lips to explain while Risque balanced the unopened bottle of moonshine placed precariously between her slender fingertips.

He just signed it away? Just like that? It was rare when someone truly surprised her and yet even though she understood the reasons why he signed it all away. Like it was no longer his problem. How certain he was going to destroy it all like he did with that cemetary.. Darcy wordlessly took that bottle from her leaving her with the caretaker in his wake. He tossed the lid upon the ground and drank as he all but walked away, the sound of his footfalls trailing behind him. It was impossible to say who was more surprised by her mate... herself or that pale caretaker who seemed unable to move or speak then. How unexpected. For a moment Risque and this pitiful old man simply watched Darcy before those gazes locked upon one another.

"Give me that book." She demanded, Darcy had left it behind it would seem. He reached out that book, giving this place one last lingering look, ignoring it. She was grateful her expensive boots remained in the vehicle. That trek up the hill would have certainly sullied them. A cicada had landed upon her boot then, a growl of discontent echoed from her lips. "Stupid bugs." She hissed in outrage... her gaze peering upon the old man as if he were nothing but an old bug too. She stut toward him then, allowing those fangs to flash in warning, before snatching that book, her hand grabbing his own frail skeletal fingers. One touch of her power was all that was needed to send icy torment through his veins... Young landy... she gave him a vision then.. Fleeting as it were... of the vampire long ago in all her brutal glory... It wasn't before his broken screams ripped from him as the world as he knew it changed and shifted beneath her powers.

With the book within her hand she made her way down that hill, the faint light of the cabin still glowing softly from the window and the old caretaker crumpled to the floor in a fetal position, fortunate not to die from the stress..

This ranch held no meaning anymore, no more power or fascination. It was nothing but a memory now. She was so finished with this.... Little town of Jakin. Darcy's story and outburst at least had not made it a complete waste. The caretaker remained upon that hill, his fingers curled into the dirt whimpering as Risque contently made her way to that truck that had already roared to life, her door opened and waiting.

He uttered something incoherent after her, Risque paying it no mind at all, the shock muddled his little words as he clutched to that paper with his life. He was all but forgotten then and her powers along with it. The moment she slid into the passenger seat of that truck, the door closed behind her. It seemed heavy and clunky like the rest of it. She turned into her seat to place that curious book in the back on top of all her newly purchased belongings from the local Boot Barn.

Her pale hypnotic gaze lingering upon her mate then as if gauging that still unreadable energy that rolled potently off him as the smell of that moonshine that lingered upon his breath. He parted his lips as if she had something more to say about releasing his rights to that land and yet stopped... apparently resigned to what transpired. There simply was nothing left to say. He killed every last tie to that dreadful place even if it was by completely other means. Darcy then offered her that half drunk bottle then, Risque eyeing it with clear distaste. She eyed it as she rolled that liquid within the bottle skeptically. She brought it to her nose that wrinkled. What was this cleaner?

How he stomached over half the bottle she hardly knew. Darcy admitted she should try it, claiming it to be... good shit. How she begged to differ. His appreciation slid her gaze to him once more as that engine roared to life. Why did she bother? Why did she feel that possessed desire to offer him solace in a drink? How odd.. Of her. Her gaze narrowed then... contemplating her own actions that hardly made sense to even herself. Had that story resonated with her far more than she let on? Had the south been.... Infecting her with its vile sweet fruit-laden air. Bleh. She had no desire to consider it anymore as she brought that bottle to her lips then. Without any preamble she took a big swig. It was as vile as it smelled. It burned her tongue and yet she didn't spit it out but swallow it down. She hissed at at it with a wrinkle of her nose.

"This is not good shit. Its paint remover." She grumbled. But then she went for another drink.

"I don't know how anyone would drink this... vile brew.." that lightly accented voice mirrored her so called disgust. She drank again.. Every mouthful seemed to slide down easier as though it wasn't so bad as she had claimed. Hm.. Darcy suddenly sped off like someone put a gun to his groin. Risque blinked just in time they almost wrapped around a cursed tree, swerving to dodge some unseeable threat. Did he just veer out of the way for a mailbox? Damn coon he muttered... but there was nothing there save for a plain black mailbox that apparently was in his way..... That clearly was not. Was he drunk? When was the last time he was this... gone? What was in that moonshine... How determined she was... to believe it would not affect her in the same way. "That was clearly a mailbox, Darcy. I am not nearly drunk enough to die in some fiery wreckage in this attire." It would seem there was little desire to talk about what happened.... Allowing it to rest while the potent brew began to creep up within the much older vampire. Risque had no desire to talk about that little ranch.. In fact she was content enough to forget it.. Forget it and her own thoughts of those memories that still churned within her mind like a disease.... It drove her drink yet again.. Nursing the liquid fire like she enjoyed it. What was that stuff? She could not believe that she was drinking from the bottle like some savage. Slowly the alcohol found its way increasingly so into her mind... It wasn't long before... her mind started to shift to that stupor. At least obstacles were no longer flying in their way.

Suddenly she spoke.... A complaint upon her lips. Mary Beth apparently... the first of many verbal tirades.. "They didn't even give us fine crystal to sample... it. Dar, people need to learn respect in this world. I could have destroyed her... on the spot. She knew it. And she still disrespects me. Foolish cow...." Apparently Risque was getting a little.. Irritated, all those thoughts and not allowing them free... seemed to make her one pissy vampire. It didn't take long for that booze to deceptively warm her empty stomach. Darcy at least managed to stay on the road. Risque found herself amused as she allowed her powers to reach out, counting all the cats in people's homes or the wild ones that lingered in the darkness of night. As that alcohol began to rise..

".... Young lady..." She scoffed under her breath.. The caretakers words spat out. Darcy seemed to be barely holding on by a thread and yet focused on staying onto that road... impressive as that... magical moonshine seemed to take its toll on her as well. "You should know.. That moonshine is broken.. I don't feel a thing. My superior vampire system rejects... her devilish brew." Why did he have to drive like he was swaying to a song? She sat up as if the straightness of her spine somehow.... Was any correlation to how sober she was. So why did she take yet another drink?

Suddenly he spoke mentioning that party they had agreed to attend what seemed like days ago... She leaned dramatically back into her chair, casting him a pointed look. "A party? I am not dressed for a party... But I am so.... Hungry.. I bet they have something edible rather than salt soup and a skeleton man..."