The Castle Doors

[Gianna Holmes]

Gianna ran through the hallways, hoping that this Bladen monster would be too busy trying to pull the remains of the paintbrush out of his body and not chasing her. Although she had the feeling that if he was chasing her, he probably would have caught up with her by now.

She tried to run a little faster when she saw the front doors. She was panting by the time she reached them. She reached out one hand that was covered with blood...hers or Bladen's, she didn't know...could have been a mix. She pushed the door open and stumbled out, barely stopping herself from falling.

[Raphael Santino]

Raphael felt himself attempting to change into his wolf form, it was something that happened at times of high adrenaline rushes. This was another reason he always attempted to stay calm. Just like most other times, Raphael faught back the change and forced himself to run faster.

Finally he had the castle in sight, but he didn't slow his pace.. not until the front of the castle was in sight and he saw Gianna just outside the front door. He climbed the steps of the castle three at a time until he reached Gianna and caught her before she was about to fall.

"Gianna, I've got you.." he said, his voice soft and in a comforting tone, his accent very thick.

[Gianna Holmes]

Gianna made a noise as she tried to push away before she realized that the person who caught her was Raphael, "Oh good, it's you!" she breathed as she put her arms around him. She felt safer now.

Then, realizing that she had fresh blood all over herself, she pushed away, "Oh, sorry, I'm getting blood on-" she stopped mid-sentence. She suddenly felt very dizzy. She must have lost more blood than she thought. Not wanting to fall on her face, she held onto him again.

Thinking about her blood made her remember that a most likely very angry vampire was probably going to appear at any minute, "Oh! You probably won't believe me, because I'm having a little trouble believing it myself, but maybe that's the blood loss...but either someone decided to file his teeth and is mentally unbalanced, or I just got attacked by a vampire," that sounded so strange, saying that out loud. "A-and I think that I made him really mad because I sort of...stabbed him with my paintbrush..."

[Raphael Santino]

"Shhh..Don't worry about my clothes, Caro." Raphael whispered, holding Gianna close to him. He picked her up and moved her away from the castle door to where they would be under a tree.

"Rammendo," Raphael muttered when he realized that Gianna had encountered a vampire. He could feel the wolf inside of him begging to be let out, begging to go on the warpath and destroy whichever vampire had done this to Gianna. But this wasn't the time for retaliation and so Raphael pushed the anger down.

"Mia cara, let me see how badly you're injured," Raphael whispered in a comforting, even tone. He pulled Gianna away from him just a bit so that he could try to find where the source of the blood was coming from, "this.. creature..did he bite you?" he asked.

[Gianna Holmes]

Gianna felt her heart calm down. The sound of his voice was soothing. Somehow, him slipping in and out of Italian added to it.

When Raphael asked her if the monster bit her, she nodded her head, "Yeah," her voice sounded hoarse to her, "H-he bit me here," she tilted her head to her left then felt around for the puncture wounds. She winced. They still hurt.

Now that she was a little calmer, she was starting to catch on to Raphael's mood...but he looked calm, if not concerned, "Are you okay?"

[Raphael Santino]

Raphael's eyes narrowed when he saw the puncture wounds on Gianna's neck. He pushed her hair away so that he could get a better look. His lips formed a straight line, but other than that, his face was completely expressionless.

He then took Gianna's hand with one of his, and used the other to rip his shirt sleeve (with the help of his teeth), and then he managed to fold the material in half and pressed it up against Gianna's throat.

He smiled at Gianna for a moment when she asked if he was okay, he almost let out a chuckle despite himself. "Yes, il mio dolce, I am fine. Hold this up to your wound for a moment." Raphael answered.

He let go of Gianna's hand and moved it up to her throat so that his hand would be free for a moment. He then took the bottom of his shirt (the part free of blood) and tore more of the material free. He folded this material to where it was long enough to wrap around Gianna's neck.

"You've lost alot of blood, let's try to prevent you from losing any more, okay? I'm going to tie this around your neck.. just tight enough to keep that in place.. here, move your hand again." he said. Once Gianna's hand was away, he held the first material in place over her wounds and wrapped the other bandage around her neck, tying it in the end.

"che dovrebbe fare," he whispered, then took her hand and kissed it, "now what happened after the man bit you?" Raphael asked, looking into Gianna's eyes.

[Gianna Holmes]

Gianna's skin broke out in goosebumps when Raphael moved her hair away from her neck. As she held his ripped sleeve to her neck, she couldn't help but lightly blush when he tore more of his shirt. She suppressed the urge to giggle like a love-struck, five-year-old girl. She didn't even want to think about how his speaking Italian made her heart flutter. This whole thing just wasn't good for her health...

"Yeah...I'm probably white as milk as it is," she gave a humorless laugh, referring to her lack of blood, "As for what happened...I should probably start to a bit before he bit me."

"He just came in and started randomly talking to me about random things, which I wouldn't mind normally, but something seemed...off about this guy," she paused, remembering Bladen's expression, "Suddenly, he um..." she suddenly felt awkward. Did she want to tell Raphael that Bladen kissed her? The last thing she wanted Raphael to do was to go after this guy and get hurt himself...but she felt that he should know, so she took a breath and just said it straight out, "and suddenly, he was kissing me," she found that she couldn't quite look at Raphael, "Then he bit me after scaring the living daylights out of me, and well, flight or fight must have kicked in, because I grabbed the nearest weapon I could, my paintbrush, and then I stabbed him." then she realised that she was still holding onto something with her free hand. She looked at what she was holding, expecting the other end of her paintbrush, only to find a necklace of sorts, "Oh, I think I pulled this off him," she held it up, unsure what it was.

[Raphael Santino]

Raphael listened to the story quietly, without interupting.. though when he heard about the vampire kissing her, he did feel a twinge of jealousy and anger. He wanted to ask her if she had wanted the man to kiss her and to tell her that it wasn't her fault if she did, because vampires could be charming or even have the ability to play with one's emotions.. but he thought this wasn't the time to bring that up.

He did lift her chin so that Gianna was looking into his eyes, "You have no reason to be embarrassed about the kiss, mia Cara. And I promise not to do anything hasty." He assured her, though he would love to find the vampire and introduce him to Death himself.

He couldn't help but smile when Gianna said she stabbed the vampire with the paintbrush. "Anti would say something to the effect of 'Killer art' or something." He said.

He took the necklace and examined it. Of course he knew what it was, but he didn't know if he could use it to find the vampire responsible for the attack. "I will explain everything to you once we get you taken care of." He said. He stood up and after putting the Rose Stone necklace in his pocket, he offered his hands to Gianna.

"Let's get you to the hospital so that they can help you get better." He said, ignoring the new anxiety that was crawling in the pit of his stomach. He knew that he had no choice but to tell Gianna that it was a vampire that attacked her, and of course that would lead to him confessing his own secret.. but not now.

[Gianna Holmes]

Gianna smiled slightly, "Heh. He would, would he?" she replied to what he thought Anti would say.

She looked at the necklace at the same time Raphael did. With the way he was looking at it, she had a feeling that it was something important. But what that importance was, she did not know.

She took his offered hand, "Good idea. I have no idea how much blood I lost. But I'm not passing out, so maybe it's not as serious as it looks," she didn't know what she looked like, but she had a feeling that she looked as if she jumped out of a slasher film.

[Riley Parker]

Riley safely made it out of the castle. She almost forgot to re-solidfy when she reached the front door, but seeing Gianna and Raphael reminded her. She ran down to meet them, but noticed the smell of blood growing stronger and stronger as she got closer to them. Panic caused her to move faster.

"Hey Gianna I tried to get to you sooner but I ran into a bit of a problem. I'm so sorry, w..."Riley said, then got a good look at what Gianna looked like and she stopped speaking for a moment, "what happened?" she finished.

[Raphael Santino]

"I don't think you can walk all the way to the hospital," Raphael told Gianna. He picked her up bridal style and was about to leave when Riley ran toward them.

"Gianna was attacked, and I'm taking her to the hospital. I don't know where Brianna is but do you think you could go look for her and tell her to meet us there?" Raphael asked. He had been about to fuss with Riley about not being there to take care of Gianna but saw that she seemed really upset about something too and had a feeling that she hadn't had a choice but to be somewhere else at the time of the attack.

"Right, I'll do that and meet you there too. Good luck," Riley said, she looked at Gianna, "I'm really sorry.." she said, her voice quaking just a little. She didn't wait for a reply, instead she took off running almost as fast as she could.

"Let's get you to the hospital now.." Raphael said. He also took off running as fast as he could, holding tightly onto Gianna so that he wouldn't drop her or cause her any pain.