Joshua entered the dark, dingy club. Normally, he wouldn’t be caught in a dive like this, but several people had told him about the singer here. Words like mesmerizing, awesome and breathtaking had been used to describe her. His friends usually weren’t so free with such high praise, so this girl had to be something special. He’d come here tonight to listen for himself.

If she was half as fantastic as rumored, she deserved better than this, he mused as he sat in a dark corner towards the front. The tables were scarred with cigarette burns and slightly sticky from remnants of spilled drinks. The stage was merely a small riser next to the lackluster four-piece band. Someone had placed a faded, frayed curtain behind it for her entrance. The spotlight was dull and watery. And the smoke – if she had any sort of voice, the smog of the bar would ruin it.

No one announced her. She merely appeared in the meager light. When she began to sing, none of the jaded regulars paid her any particular attention. The singer was simply a fixture.

But Joshua noticed. Her voice was haunting as she sang of lost love. It was strong and pure. The slightly husky quality spoke of maturity beyond her years. She made the words her own. He listened to the entire set, enthralled and captivated. It was more than her voice. That face...

She had a sad innocence about her.

He knew that face from somewhere...

Where had he seen that beautiful face full of sorrow?

Mia felt his eyes. His entire focus was upon her. It was fairly rare anyone paid her much attention here at Al’s Club. A handful of times strangers wandered in to listen to her, but to the regular patrons, she was simply a fixture like another table or chair. In the five years she had been here, she had grown used to being ignored.

But he was different. His gaze was familiar. She had been caressed by it many times in her dreams. The blue eyes of the lover she would never know. The eyes of love denied her by the Kindred – of a life they had destroyed. She felt the entire weight of his thoughts throughout her set. By the time she was finished, she was trembling. She had to escape him.

Stepping down from the riser, she hoped to fade into the darkness of the bar and go to her room. She had nearly made it to the back stairs when a hand took her arm.

“Mia...”

It was the girl from the missing person’s poster he had seen so many years ago. Joshua recalled the hotel proprietor’s words. How the picture grew sadder. The beautiful face had been burned into his memory.

He had planned to talk to her when her set was finished, but she had melted into the darkness. It had taken a moment to spot her slinking away.

“Mia, wait...”

Mia was trapped when she looked into his eyes. She had waited all her life for that wondrous blue caress. “Joshua...” His touch seemed to burn her flesh with a delicious heat, branding her as his for eternity. Then his hand was gone and she was bereft. But soon his hand cupped her face, tipping it upward as his dear face grew closer.

The kiss was like a warm gentle rain. Soft. Sweet. Life giving.

“I have waited forever for you,” she whispered as she reached for more of his kiss.

He was the one. Mia was certain. Joshua was the one who would take her into fully-fledged vampirism. Her first kill. The smell of the hot blood pulsing beneath his skin made her dizzy with desire and he made it so very easy with his wanting to hold her close. She had never desired anyone as much as she did him.

Joshua came to the club nightly and sat at the same table. He watched her. He listened to her sing. Between sets she sat at his table. They talked of his day. He spoke of how he wanted her to leave Al’s Club, how she deserved better. He swore his love for her – and he kissed her.

Those kisses...ambrosia. Not always gentle anymore. They would surrender to their passion. He would drag her onto his lap as she opened to him. Their mouths mated. Their tongues would tangle and dance. He would touch her in ways a woman desired to be touched by her soon-to-be lover. She would feel his manhood harden against her and know someday soon it would become part of her, buried within her as they loved.

The woman and the monster existed within the same body. They both had the same goal. Possession of Joshua. The woman sought love. The monster lusted for his blood. The woman protected her lover by holding him off. The monster lured him at every opportunity. The struggle was constant. The torment eternal. Mia didn’t know how long she could keep the beast at bay.

Joshua wondered how long he could tolerate Mia’s indecision. One moment she came to him fully, fairly begging for his touch, inciting him with knowing caresses of her own. In the next, she turned shy and uncertain – or worse yet, totally cool to his advances. He readily admitted even she seemed unaware of her mixed signals. It was as if two Mia’s existed and at any given time, he did not know which one he faced.

It only became worse when she allowed him into the sanctuary of her apartment. In Al’s basement, she lived in a one-room efficiency. Joshua found the place depressing. Bare cement walls. Not one window. A small twin bed, a nightstand and bureau made up the sleeping area. A cramped little kitchenette with a chipped Formica table and two cracked vinyl chairs was where she took her meager meals. He could see why she was pale and solemn – she lived in a world devoid of sun and light.

“Baby, move in with me,” he had said any number of times. Only to be told she was content as she was.

While she struggled to protect Joshua from the monster within, Mia began to battle loneliness and isolation. Before he had come to her, she thought nothing of her single room and solitary life. He brought her music. He brought her the world via a computer and the Internet. She hadn’t seen the world of daylight in twenty-six years. So much had changed. Joshua gladly shared his world – and was disheartened when she refused to accompany him on day adventures. She pleaded fatigue so many times he finally gave up.

She would have to take him soon, Mia realized one day when Joshua had come to her. They stretched out on her meager bed and kissed and touched. When they lie together like this, his strong heart beat like a drum to her ears. She could hear his blood as it was pumped through his veins. She could smell it – sweet, thick, rich. She craved it.

Just yesterday, she had nearly done the deed. He had fallen asleep when she had gone upstairs to work with the band. His head tilted to one side, his neck had been left vulnerable. She had stood over him as the minutes ticked by, her fangs ready. She fought against taking him in such a manner. The monster could smell the salty tang. The monster wanted to fall upon him and drain him greedily, satiating itself for the moment. Mia had held it at bay until she joined him on the bed. Then she teasingly scraped the fangs along his neck, anticipating sinking them into his flesh.

Joshua had awakened, putting his arms around her trustingly and greeting her with his usual “Hey, baby.” The fangs retracted and Mia had overcome the beast one more time.

Her only hope in controlling it was to offer it a deal. A little sip from her lover’s veins in exchange for not taking his beloved life.