<div style="text-align: left;">Solitude had been her desired lot in the existence she thought of as life. Nephalia had provided that for her. True, she lived in one of the larger cities of the province but she was rarely bothered and food was not an issue she’d encountered. She thought of the man, Milton, she favored at the manor, a homely human by many accounts, but the taste of his blood was near perfect and she found she looked forward to a sip of him each time she was able. She’d staked her claim to him when she’d brought him in some twenty years back. It had been in a moment of desperation that she’d found him – when she’d been at deaths door and he’d helped her to her feet. Without his consent she’d bitten him, nearly drained too much of that delightfully thick blood of his, when she realized that she’d stumbled upon something magnificent she stopped and taken him to the manor. From then on, after she’d taken in the lowly beggar and despite all the ridicule she’d received, he’d been given a place there. Few vampires touched him – he lacked many of his teeth and despite fine clothes, food, and regular baths – he still looked like a vagabond. He was good company too and she spend hours chatting with him, telling stories, or discussing the arts and politics. He was her dessert and she knew that she would miss him when his old age finally took him. It had crossed her mind a few times to suggest turning him – but the process was long and she wasn’t sure she wanted to damn him to an eternal life. <br/><br/>Ivy felt the prick of tears at her eyes and she turned her pale green gaze out to the ocean from where she stood, high atop a cliff that looked out over the city. The surface of the water glittered under the bright silvery moon and she inhaled deeply the scent of the sea. She filled her lungs and held it, closed her eyes, and savored the coolness of it though the wind was tinged with something akin to rot. She was accustomed to it but it diminished the beauty of all that was around her. Tonight was a rare night when the mist hung low on the coast but the bluffs around it were clear. Yet, it wouldn’t last. Already, on the distant horizon there was a storm brewing and she knew, from years of seeing them, it would be upon then in the early hours of dawn if not sooner. <br/><br/>Ivy allowed her lace shawl to fall from her shoulders and hang from her elbows. Gooseflesh rose over her porcelain skin and she reached to run a hand through her mess of thick black curls. The ends of which touched the small of her back. Ivy was naturally beautiful, a curse-like blessing that came from being a vampire. Yet, she found she rarely used her glamor save for when she strode about in public and then it was only to hide her ruby eyes and to darken her fair complexion. Unlike some of her kin, she liked humans, but not in the way that most vampires liked them as a food source or a pet. She enjoyed their company – though she limited it to a select few. Most, she’d discovered, did not necessarily like her and were often nasty because of it. She could name three humans she enjoyed the company of, aside from Milton, and that was Emily the baker, Jacob, the burly mason, and his wife Marcy who worked as her maid, and not a soul more. <br/><br/>A movement to her right startled her and she shied away from it in the dark and looked toward it. There, some distance off to her side, was a man. His muscled frame was unclothed and bathed in the pale luminescence of the moon. Instantly she noticed he was strikingly different but in what way she wasn’t sure. She waited in silence for him to move, perhaps to even notice her, but she did little else than stare at him – a handsome creature clothed only in skin. <br/></div>