
She had always loved to walk amongst the old ruins on nights like this, with the thunder crashing around her and the fresh sea air assailing her nostrils making them flare as she would breathe in the strong ocean smell.
This is how he had found her. For months he had watched her. By night he would hide himself amongst the shadows of the ruins and by day he would sleep the sleep of the dead down beneath the ruins in the old cellars that now only housed bats, cobwebs and scurrying mice. When she would leave the ruins for her home, he would appear in her room in the shape of a bat, hanging from the wooden beams above her bed. There he would stay, sending her thoughts in her sleep, tender thoughts that he didn't know he could still have inside his chest, till, when the distant fingers of dawn would herald his leave back to the cellars of the ruins.
But the time had come that he needed to feed again...he would have to venture out, and soon, for the sustenance he had been getting in and around the ruins was running out. The rabbit warrens were empty and the farmers had been sending out nightly patrols to try to catch whatever it was that was killing their sheep, leaving them intact except for a small mark at their jugular tinged with the red of their blood. He would have to scout a new area close enough so he could return at night to watch over his vision of loveliness....no...he wouldn't bring himself to drink from this beauty. He had other plans for her...plans he would return to complete in one years time, plans to make her his for that night and every night hence....
Little did he know that she had seen him many times during her walks but showed no fear for she would continue her exploring as if he wasn't there. She had seen his sharp chiseled features in the shadows, his long shiny raven hair blowing in the wind and sensed his presence near her each time she visited the ruins. When sleep came to her each night, her dreams would be filled with the vision of this dark handsome stranger taking her in his arms, holding her close to him till she felt herself being so enveloped in his tenderness and when daylight would wake her, she would feel a loss deep in her heart akin to grief.
This went on for months and with the passing of each month her love for this stranger, whom she had never met, grew each night in her dreams. Though her last dream was one year ago tonight. One long year of going each night to the ruins hoping she would see him again, promising herself she would let him know she was aware of him. But he never returned. Tonight was a night just like that last night she had seen him. Dare she venture to the ruins again in hope...