[Doctor Gabriel]

Gabriel’s long dead heart seized in his chest. He looked down, not wanting meet the girl’s eyes any longer.

“Yeah, I guess it’ll be better that way…” He smiled bitterly and went to close the door, “You better get going before you’re late. Try to stay out of trouble… Mila.”

He hardly ever called her by her name. To him she’d always been Mon Petit Ange, My Little Angel. But he couldn’t call her that anymore. She wasn’t little anymore, she wasn’t an angel, and she’d never been his to begin with.

The door creaked shut behind him and his back slid down it as he let his composure slip away. He knew this would happen eventually and at first he’d eagerly awaited it. But that had fallen away after a while.

He’d been a monster longer than he could remember. He’d been alone. No one ever saw him as anything but a predator of the night. But that girl… That girl had just seen him as another man.

Tears began to trickle from the corners of his eyes.
He didn’t even realize he could cry anymore. Had never had the reason too.

But he was… sad. It was a new feeling. One he must have had before at some point, but now it seemed new and alien. He didn’t like it.

But, she was a woman now, a fact that he’d become uncomfortably reminded of everytime he saw her. The little girl in his memories had been replaced by beautiful young woman, whose little movements, gestures, and especially smell put him on edge.

Part of him wished he’d never taken the little warmblood in in the first place.

But it was small, and overshadowed by the fear of having to return to sleeping in the large loft alone again. It had been oddly comforting, knowing someone was out there during the day when he was asleep.

Now he’d have to sleep with one eye open again.

“You can go back to the life that you had before me.”

Gabriel held his knees to his chest and sunk his head behind his arms.

“I don’t want to go back…”