Melissa's Christmas Wish

Serghei awoke with a start, turning his head slightly to the left, his ears twitched as he attempted to locate the source of the noise that had awakened him from his death sleep. Nothing but the setting of the sun should have brought him out of the cursed dark abyss. Yet here he lay in the pitch blackness of the room listening and waiting for some unknown sound that probably was not there in the first place. But it was always better to be safe than dust. Especially since several days ago he was made aware of the Hunters who tracked his coven to New Orleans. As leader of this coven it was his duty to protect his family, those he had brought over into the night. Next door was Gustav, Ivan, and Jerick whom he had found near death and had transformed during the Crimean War. The three men had nearly perished on the battlefield after sustaining gruesome, life threatening wounds. He had carried each man to the ward sister, Florence, who had tried to staunch the flow of life giving blood from each man, but had eventually given up placing them on the broken wooden carts that lined the back of the medical tent. That was where he had later found them. His one question changed their lives to that of the undead for eternity. “Do you want to live?” Their answer had bound the lives of those men to his, thus guaranteeing his protection and kinship. All through the years each had become almost dependent on the others, fighting alongside him against the Hunters who sought to destroy them.
Now, as he lay there quietly listening for an intruder he wondered yet again had he been wrong turning the men next door, especially now when they were always seemed to be on the move. This time of the year was worse. Christmas kind of brought home what they all missed... never taking the time to build relationships or bond with others outside of their close-niched group. A crash sounded in the far corner of the darkened room and Serghei turned with a quick snap, leaped from the bed, and crouched in his fighting stance searching the darkness for the intruder.