Her Last Words

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Alinar Publishing www.alinarpublishing.com Copyright ©2007 by Kallysten First published in 2007, 2007 NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

Her Last Words + Kallysten

Copyright © 2007 Kallysten All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The right of Kallysten to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published October 2005 Second edition November 2007 All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Edited by Maria Morpeth

Cover by Kallysten ISBN (PDF only): 1-906023-40-9 978-1-906023-40-9

Chapter 1 Despite everything, the first blow was unexpected, and Gabrielle instinctively wanted to reply in kind. The blood trickling from her nose, counterpoint to the sharp pain, roused her demon and she felt her fangs start to elongate. She fought the change, just like she fought the instinct to strike back. And if she closed her hands tight enough that her fingernails drew blood from her palms, she didn't use her fists to fight back. She parried some blows, but without much conviction. She could easily have struck back; those were only humans around her, and only a handful of them at that. In seconds, she could have killed all of them, or broken a few bones to disable them; neither option would have taken much time or skill. But they had more of a right to hurt her than she did them, and so she stayed there, and waited for one of them to figure out what she was and shove a piece of wood through her heart. It was far too common, these days, for isolated people to be the victims of attacks as unprovoked as they could be deadly. It was enough to be dressed in clothes that weren't rags to attract this sort of attention. Enough to look reasonably healthy. To look like you weren't starving. To look like you had anything worth stealing on your person. Any reason was enough, really; and sometimes, no reasons were needed at all. Gabrielle remembered days of peace, when this kind of behavior would have been met with swift retaliation from the vampire clan on whose grounds the transgression had occurred. Vampires were protective of what they considered theirs, and humans definitely fell into that category. The Pacts didn't say it in so many words, of course, and the humans would have been offended to even hear it, but as a clan Master, that had always been how Gabrielle saw things. The people she had protected against demons and rogue humans alike and who had offered blood to her and to her clan had been hers. Free to move to other villages, free to do as they pleased, but ultimately hers, just as much as her Childer had been hers. Responsibility and family, all at once. Now though, vampires were too busy fighting demons to be able to police the humans. And the humans were so scared by everything going on around them that their attempts to police themselves often ended in summary executions. Gabrielle knew all that. She had tried, for as long as she had been able to keep a hold on her territory, to keep her people safe. Without a clan around her, however, the task was too large, and all she could do was spend her nights patrolling grounds she didn't dare call hers anymore, and help whatever humans she met. If she heard about demons invading a town or village, she would run there, often arriving too late to do more than mourn and kill a few beasts. The humans who had once looked up to her, sought her help, had for the most part stopped believing in her. She was glad they had. Even with the rampant danger, people often stayed in their villages rather than seek refuge in overcrowded towns that weren't as safe as they claimed to be. The village councils that had survived had gained power, and they organized patrol groups to ward off demons entering their villages and keep

human thieves and murderers at bay. If they were lucky enough to have them, young people who knew hardly anything about weapons armed themselves with axes, short swords and spears. Otherwise they used sticks and rocks. Decently armed or not, one thing was common to all of them; they reeked of fear. Gabrielle had laughed, the first few times she had encountered these groups on her territory; these children were pitiful, not quite believing they could fight yet ready to die trying. Over the years, the laughs had turned into sour anger. The humans had learned to fight, at least enough to get by, and as a group they were often as effective defending their villages as she was alone. Eventually, the anger had faded, leaving only tiredness and regret. Gabrielle was tired of fighting, tired of protecting humans who were as wary of her as they were afraid of demons. Two centuries of fighting for them on her own were enough to make up for her failings, or so she thought. If whoever passed judgment on these things thought otherwise ... well, hell couldn't possibly be much worse than this. She had been ready to die, but she had planned to do so standing, and she was almost surprised suddenly to find herself on the ground. The grass was wet against her cheek, she noticed. Wet and sticky. It took her long seconds to realize it was wet with her blood. Focusing on small, insignificant details helped. It made the pain manageable if not less—oh, no, not less. They had stopped beating her, now, but she could feel each cut, each bruise and a couple of broken bones. She could hear them talk, too. Talk of the need for a stake carved from special wood, talk of beheading, and short swords hidden back in the village that could be fetched in minutes. Tired as she was, she was ready to tell them that any piece of wood, as long as it was sharp enough to pierce her skin, would do the job, and the special wood was a myth. Anything for all of it to end now, and quickly, the physical pain and the mental agony alike. The talking stopped, and the part of Gabrielle's brain that wasn't consumed by pain wondered if she had passed out already. Although if she had, she wouldn't have been aware of it, wouldn't have questioned herself, wouldn't still be feeling pain, just as overwhelming as it had been, two centuries earlier on that cursed morning. She had knelt, then, broken in mind and body, on a battlefield littered with corpses she couldn't look at, because each of them wore the face of a friend, of a member of her clan, of a human from her first allied village. Each streak of lightning in the sky had made it all too clear how many bodies lay around her. Most of them should have vanished, should have been reduced to ashes, but the Primal Forces had done something to the vampires they had killed that night, and their bodies had remained intact in death. Gabrielle had knelt, waiting for the sun as she did now, ready to join the fallen fighters she had led to their deaths. She had failed the members of her clan, as she had failed the humans under her protection. And then, she had heard it despite the relentless thunder over her head. A sob. A heart-wrenching sob. The cry of a lost soul who had seen everything, everyone they loved disappear. Just like Gabrielle had. She had found it in herself to stand, to stumble to the crying man lying with scorched bodies. She had called his name, in vain. Erik had not reacted, too lost in his grief to respond to a simple word. Gabrielle had closed her hand on his shoulder, gradually squeezing hard enough to hurt, because Erik did not look at her until she did that. Dead eyes had stared at her, unseeing, from behind a mask of blood and grime. Gabrielle had heard words fall out of her mouth, comfort that tasted of ashes, courage as bright as a dying flame. Erik had continued to stare at her blankly until Gabrielle had pulled him up and led him to shelter in the ruins that had been their lair. Saved him, like she hadn't been able to save the others. And then... A noise—soft steps—pulled Gabrielle back to the present, and she made the effort to open her eyes. At first, she thought that she was still lost in her memories as her gaze met the icy gray eyes of a vampire she

hadn't seen in two hundred years. But when she blinked, the tall shadow only got closer, clearer. "Have you lost the last sane bits of your brain?” a sneering voice asked, too loud, slightly off. “What the hell is wrong with you? Trying to get yourself dusted?" Gabrielle's only answer was a grunt. Closing her eyes again, she mentally wished Erik would go away and leave her alone to the tender care of the soon to come sunrise, or to that of these humans. Although they seemed to have disappeared. Where had they gone? To get that sword, maybe? Strong hands grabbed her, and as she yelled in pain Gabrielle was sure Erik was about to finish the job. In a sense, it was fitting. The pain was excruciating, broken bones moving as no bone should, cracked ribs protesting, bruised skin coming into contact with too strong hands— Blissful darkness swallowed everything into silence.

Chapter 2 + Three hundred and fifty years earlier A man and a woman were waiting for Gabrielle at the entrance of the village, each of them carrying a burning torch. The flames cast more than enough light for her to distinguish their features, nervous and grave; but also, she could clearly see the expectation on their faces. They had waited for this for a long time, and they were glad that she had come to them. She couldn't have hoped for a better way to begin her life as a Master. They both bowed toward her when her horse came to a halt in front of them, and she inclined her head in return. They then turned away together, their coordination ample proof that the ceremony had been practiced to perfection before they had even known the village would finally be granted the protection of a Master. It had been their choice to establish a new village so far from the closest lair, too far to be protected. Perhaps they had believed they could live without the help of vampires. But clearly, they had found out otherwise, and it had been many months, Gabrielle knew, since they had sent a request for a Master. Their wait was over, now, though. They had accepted her already, the village council giving word back with the messenger she had sent to them that they were eager to meet her. However, the Pact would only be sealed once the ceremony was completed. The details varied from territory to territory, but as far away from her old lair as she was, Gabrielle knew that the core of it would be centered on the sharing of blood. It always was; after all, it was what the whole Pact was based on. She followed the torchbearers down the street, straight to the central plaza. It was barely more than an open square at the center of the village with the common well on one side, but somehow it seemed almost impressive as the realization slowly dawned on her that the hundred or so people gathered there, all of them facing her as she approached, would soon be her people. She would be linked to them, and they to her, in only a few moments. She had known this would happen some day from the instant her Sire had chosen her, but she still felt an incredible trepidation that it was finally happening. Descending from her horse with practiced ease, she clenched and unclenched her fists repeatedly while walking to the raised podium that had been erected for the ceremony. She heard the ritual words the torchbearers pronounced, and answered with the same words she remembered her Sire using during a ceremony such as this one, but her mind was already beyond this. The same way, when she slid the strap of the grain sack from her shoulder and offered it to the old man who had walked forward and asked the ritual question, her actions were dictated more by what she

knew had to happen than by conscious thought; the importance of it all was too great for her to even think anymore. Hunting and killing a demon, on her way to the village, had seemed innocuous enough. Giving proof that she had, now, was anything but innocuous. It was her first duty as a Master to keep her people safe, and the severed demon head the old man was now showing to the crowd was her pledge to them that they did not need to fear demons anymore. The next part was to be performed by the villagers, and Gabrielle was offered a seat to be more comfortable as they did. The torchbearers slid their torches into stands on each side of her and were the first to let a few drops of blood each fall into a metal cup. She couldn't see it from where she sat, but she knew a few crushed herbs were at the bottom of the cup, chosen to keep the blood fresh during a ceremony that could take more than an hour. One by one, the members of the crowd approached, and each of them cut his or her own palm, joining their blood to that of the others in the cup. All present that had lived through their fifteenth birthday participated in the ritual, and it took a long time before Gabrielle was presented with the full cup that symbolized all the lives that were now hers to defend. She stood before taking the cup, and raised it high over her head, her gesture silently thanking all those who had shed their blood for her this night, and who would do so in the future. Her hands trembled a little as she brought the cup to her lips; she drank deep, and didn't stop before she had emptied the cup, aware that this very act was granting her the title of Master more than her Sire freeing her of his rule and sending her off to establish her own lair had. She was startled, when the cup left her lips, by the instantaneous clamor that rose from the crowd, so silent until that instant. She quickly realized it was shouts of happiness she was hearing, and smiled for the first time that night, coming close to laughing herself as the tension left her body. "If it pleases you, my lady,” the female torchbearer said, bowing to her, “our young people shall talk to you while the feast continues." Gabrielle nodded her assent, and pushed the hood of her cloak back before sitting again. Another part of the ritual was about to begin, one she had mixed feelings about. She would need help, to protect the village, and it was traditional for a Master to choose amongst the young humans of the village someone she would make her Childe and train to fight with her. She had no desire to choose so quickly, however. For her first Childe, she wanted someone whose company she would enjoy, not just the prettiest or strongest of those she would meet. She had made that clear in the message she had sent to the village council, but of course they expected her to at least meet her potential Childer that night. She was sure she would need at least a few weeks, before she could make her choice. She wanted to talk to them, and a few words, as she was doing now, were far from enough. Or so she thought, until piercing blue-gray eyes looked straight at her as a man put a knee down in front of her. All the others had kept their heads bowed, barely daring to look up when she asked their name, but this one looked straight at her. "I am called Erik, my lady.” The young man answered her question, his gaze never wavering. “May I ask to know your name?" Gabrielle laughed in both surprise and delight. This one was truly unique. Broad of shoulders and his ashy blond hair gathered in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck, he looked no different from a dozen other young men she had talked to already that night, but his wit seemed to be something else altogether. "My name is Gabrielle, Erik. Although I think you might learn to call me Sire." The shock or fear she had expected did not appear in his eyes, nor were they present in his voice when

he replied: “If it is your wish, my lady." There were still a dozen or so young men and women waiting to come to her, but Gabrielle stood. Erik remained on one knee, his head now tilted back so he could still see her. The torchbearers rushed to her, inquiring whether anything was wrong, and she reassured them with a smile. "I have seen enough for tonight and wish to retire. Sunrise will be upon us fast, now." "If it pleases you, my lady, I will guide you to your lair,” the female immediately offered, bowing lightly. “It is near the forest. It is not very large yet, but we will enlarge it as you see fit. Only ask and our best artisans will work to satisfy your needs." Gabrielle nodded once, but made her desire known to have Erik lead her there. The torchbearers beamed at that news, clearly thinking that she had made her choice already, and for a few seconds Gabrielle wanted to tell them she was only going to speak to the young man. But then he stood, and without waiting for further instructions went to get her horse and led it to the podium, holding it in place for Gabrielle to climb on. His small smile, as he did all this, intrigued her as much as his daring eyes had. Maybe she had truly found her first Childe, after all. The villagers were cheering around her as Gabrielle left the town square and she remained very straight in her saddle. One of the lessons she had learned from her Sire was at the forefront of her mind at that moment; always, she had to remain in control of herself, and show the humans someone dignified, someone they could look up to, someone they could trust with their lives. Soon enough, the cheers and songs behind them were nothing more than murmurs fading in the wind, and Gabrielle focused more fully on her companion. Erik was attractive, and certainly she wanted to be able to look at her first Childe and find beauty in what she saw. She would spend a lot of time with him, and she had to choose right. Appearances were only part of it, though. She couldn't abide foolhardiness, and needed someone who wouldn't cower in fear when he was first confronted with demons. The latter, she wouldn't be able to judge until they rode into battle, but she thought herself a good judge of character and she intended to know before long what kind of man Erik was beyond his daring eyes and pretty smile. He appeared surprised when she slid off the horse to walk next to him, but he easily let go of his hold on the animal to let her guide it. "He's a fine mount,” he commented before she could decide where to start. “There isn't one as fine anywhere around." She frowned at that, wondering if he thought that being chosen by her would grant him access to things he would otherwise not have known. He quickly reassured her however, continuing on the same quiet tone that she realized was his way of filling in a too awkward silence. "My father runs the village stables, so he'll be the one to provide you with additional mounts when you need them. He has a good eye for horseflesh, the merchants of the other villages say as much, but it might take him some time to get horses as fine as this one. He'll find them, though. The whole village will provide you anything you may wish." Gabrielle refrained from pointing out that it was the whole point of the Pact she had sealed that night, and merely nodded. It wasn't greed that had made him speak, she now realized, but simply loyalty to his village and pride in what his people would do for her. What he would do, too.

"Did you work in the stables with him?” she asked, barely mindful that she was implying that he wouldn't work there anymore. "Yes, my lady, same as my two brothers. I've never been as good as they are, though." She could hear more, behind his words, things that he would never say aloud, maybe not even think to himself, but that had probably lurked in his mind for years, now. By tradition, on her first night in town only the young people who were interested in becoming vampires would have introduced themselves to her; Erik had probably seen her as a chance to do something different from what was expected of him by his family. That explained his audacity when he had first talked to her, but it didn't guarantee that he truly wanted to become her Childe, or even that he understood what it meant. "They wouldn't be your family anymore, if I were to sire you." She could see that her pronouncement had shaken him, but after a little while he nodded nonetheless. “I know, my lady." "And you'd probably have to feed from them, sooner or later,” she continued, unyielding. It took him a few more seconds to reply, and his voice was more subdued. “I know that too." "And before you know it, they'll be gone, every single one of them, and their grandchildren will look at you and wonder if you know who they are. They'll always remember you came from their village, but you'll never be part of them anymore." She could see a building in the distance, dark against the slowly lightening sky. It had to be her new lair. She stopped, and her horse, well trained, stilled instantly. Erik took a few more steps before realizing she wasn't by his side anymore. He turned back and looked at her, his features difficult to read in the twilight. "Think about what I said, Erik. There is no shame in turning back now." What she kept quiet was how much she had wished, in the months after her own siring, that her Sire would have told her what she had just explained to Erik. It wouldn't have changed her mind about accepting to become a vampire, but it might have made the transition easier. She started advancing again and Erik immediately fell into step with her. "I'll help to keep them safe,” he said, so quietly that she wasn't sure whether he was talking for her benefit or to himself. “That'll be enough." They didn't share another word until they had reached the lair. Erik took the horse to the stable and quickly, efficiently took care of its needs. Gabrielle watched him, leaning against the heavy stone wall of the stable, and tried to figure out what he was feeling. She could discern no fear coming from him, but there was a certain nervousness to his movements. The overwhelming impression she was getting from him however was sheer determination. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had been very lucky to find him tonight. He would do wonderfully as her first Childe. At her request, he showed her the inside of the lair. She followed him from room to room, happy with

what she saw. The village had done a fine job, building this lair for her and her future clan. "And these are your bed chambers." Gabrielle preceded him inside the room, the flames of the torch she held casting changing shadows upon the walls. She heard the shuffling of his feet as he hesitated for an instant before following. The acrid smell of nervousness had been slowly creeping up in his scent since they had entered the lair, and she could see the same anxiety on his features when she looked at him. "Are you changing your mind? It is still time." "No, I'm not,” he assured her immediately. “It's just...” He faltered for an instant. “I just realized how little I knew about what it means to be a vampire." "You wouldn't be just a vampire,” Gabrielle said, slowly coming back toward him. “You would be my Childe." He gave her a twisted smile. “I'm not sure I know what that means either." Her hand rose to cup his cheek and Erik shuddered. His face was smooth. She wondered how old he was. She would have guessed a little over twenty. "It means I will teach you everything you need to know, answer any question you may have. But I cannot do so until you awaken as a vampire." He nodded, although she wasn't sure he could understand how deeply his world was about to change. There were probably many questions that would find an answer simply by his becoming a vampire. She led him to the bed and made him sit on it next to her. He was trembling, just a little; she doubted it was because the room was cold. "Close your eyes,” Gabrielle murmured even as she closed the distance between their lips for a brief kiss. Tentatively, he rested a hand at her waist and tried to draw her back when she pulled away. She smiled and leaned in again, but instead of kissing his lips once more, she kissed the crook of his neck. Then she bit. He cried out but did not try to push her away. She knew, because she had been in his place, long ago, that the pain was fading and turning into pleasure. He was trembling against her, now, and when she rested her hand on him, cupping his cock through his breeches, she could feel how hard he was. His second cry was one of pleasure that ended as a quiet, breathless moan as he started fading away. He had just enough strength left for a weak protest when her lips left him and she eased him down onto the bed. She slashed her wrist with her fangs and pressed it to his mouth. "Drink, Erik. When you awaken, you will be my Childe." He visibly struggled to swallow the thick liquid sliding on his tongue. She massaged his throat to help. She had seen this being done before, but she never had done it herself. When she pulled her wrist away,

all she could hope was that she had given him enough. The temptation to lie by Erik's side until he would wake was strong, and for a while Gabrielle indulged it, watching him sleep. She knew, deep down, that in truth he was dead; she was all too conscious of the void his heart had left when it had ceased to beat. But she also knew that he would regain life, a new life that he would spend by her side, calling her Sire each step of the way. The knowledge that she had sired him, that she had made him hers in such a profound way was staggering. She had felt for the first time like a true Master earlier that night, when she had accepted the cup of blood that had sealed the pact with Erik's village. But now that she had accomplished this primal act of vampires and made her first Childe, she realized she had been wrong. This was the true rite of passage, the passage from being a Childe to being a Sire. She should have been tired, she had had a long ride to the village and an equally long night, but even though she could feel that the sun was far above the horizon already, she couldn't even think of sleeping; she was far too excited for that, and impatient for Erik to wake. With quick, efficient movements, she started undressing him, but as more flesh was revealed her gestures became slower, her fingers trailing over his golden skin. He had to have worked shirtless on more than a few sunny days. It was a pity that, with time, he would grow paler. When he was finally nude, she shifted his position so that he lay in the center of the wide bed and drew a cover over him. She would be back before he'd wake, but she had other things to do in the meantime. She would have had little to request if she had not sired anyone that night. The villagers had built a nice lair, spacious, safe and comfortable. But having Erik with her would change everything. Sitting in the common room, Gabrielle made a mental list. When the two village council members who had greeted her the previous night arrived, she was ready to demand. Weapons to train and to fight, a horse for Erik, clothes, more furniture for the common room, a board and pieces to play Stones and Water; all of her requests were noted down on a piece of parchment, with the two humans conferring ever so often over who in the village would be best suited to fulfill them. Neither of them ever asked about Erik, but the simple fact that two of them had come showed they believed he was a vampire now. Gabrielle accepted a blood offering from each of them, one for herself, one in Erik's name. It was late afternoon when they left the lair. Gabrielle was more on edge than ever. When she returned to the bedchambers, she tried to keep her eyes off Erik, but even as she added wood to the fire, undressed, washed off the dust of the travel, her gaze returned to him, over and over again. Her Childe. She wasn't getting used to the idea. She was beginning to think she wouldn't get used to it for quite some time. Droplets of water still clinging to her skin, she slid between the covers and close to Erik so that her body touched the length of his. The cover was heavy on them, and unnecessary. With no need for heat, covers, just like fireplaces, were superfluous. Still, Gabrielle had yet to meet a vampire who didn't crave heat, or the illusion of it. At first, she did little more than stroke her thumb over his heart in her regular pattern that unconsciously echoed the beat he had lost. But as time passed, as the sun slowly descended and brought the hour of Erik's awakening closer, her fingers trailed from his collarbone, over his chest and down to his thighs, slow caresses in soothing repetitive patterns. Right on the edge of her memory, she could remember awakening from her mortal life and into a new one and feeling a little lost at the incredible changes that had come upon her. Her Sire had given her an anchor with his touch and his blood. She intended to offer Erik the same things.

The first sign was a slight trembling beneath her fingers, so faint that for a moment Gabrielle thought she had imagined it. But the tremor intensified as she continued her unhurried discovery of Erik's body, her hand finding new interesting places to explore. As light as her touch was, he shivered when she ran a single finger along his hardening cock from root to tip, and she heard him take a shaky breath. He was awake. She brought her hand up to his mouth and pressed the inside of her wrist to his lips. "Your first bite,” she murmured, leaning in closer to him. “You may take as much as you wish." For the brief moment it took Erik to comply, Gabrielle remembered once more her own beginnings, and the overwhelming hunger that had consumed her in her first instants. She could easily imagine that it was the same for Erik, especially when he bit deep and pulled hard on her blood. She allowed him to take as much as he needed; she wouldn't always grant him so much, but this one time, it was traditional. "Sire." She had expected the word to pass his lips once he had finished feeding, but to actually hear it sent a jolt through Gabrielle. She smiled. "Yes, Childe." As gently as she had before while he was still stirring, she trailed her fingertips over his skin, slow, sensuous patterns with no beginning or end. She had had many lovers before him, some humans, some vampires, but she was intent on discovering what Erik liked and what would make him tremble. Each touch was a learning experience and she watched his face for any reaction as well as felt the involuntary shudders that shook his body against hers. His nipples hardened instantly when she flicked a nail against one nub then the other and traced each areola lazily. His stomach rippled when she brushed her knuckles against it; ticklish. The barest pressure was sufficient to make him spread his thighs just enough for Gabrielle to explore the underside of his balls with a single finger that soon traveled up the length of his hard cock and straight to the tip. It wasn't nearly enough contact, she was perfectly aware of that, but aside from a few noises deep in his throat, Erik let her do exactly as she pleased, remaining as still as he could probably manage. "Good lad,” she murmured, close enough to his skin that her words had to be tickling his cheek. He shivered at the praise, and minutely turned his face toward her until his lips brushed against hers. She allowed the chaste contact for an instant before deepening the kiss, and slid her tongue past his lips even as she wrapped her hand fully around his cock. He moaned in her mouth before tentatively reaching out to touch her tongue with his own. At the same time, he thrust up and into her fist, but by tightening her hand she let him know that she wouldn't be rushed. She took her time exploring his mouth with her tongue, hunting down every last trace of her blood. It always felt strange to discover her own flavor on someone else's lips, but in this case it was also intoxicating and it made her want more of him without any more delay. Pushing back the covers, she sat up and astride his thighs, still firmly holding his cock in her tight hand. Erik's eyes widened as they traveled over her body and his tongue came out to touch his bottom lip.

"Can I...” he murmured, and hesitated until she raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “Can I touch you?" A short nod was enough of an answer, and Gabrielle started stroking his cock in long, leisurely movements as she waited to see what he would do. His right hand was trembling as it hovered above her arm, then slid over her chest, always a hair short of making contact, as though he were afraid to burn himself by touching her. Grabbing his wrist, Gabrielle pulled his hand to her mouth and placed a wet kiss in the center of his palm. She then guided his fingers down her neck, against those almost faded scars that had made her what she was, and lower still until he was cradling her breast in his palm, a little too gently, maybe, but he would have time to learn what she liked best. Letting go of his hand, she briefly rested her own against his chest as she raised herself to her knees and guided his cock to rub against her folds before pushing past them and inside her. He let out a shaky breath as she slowly sank onto him; his eyes were shining in awe. With her hands trailing fluttering touches over his chest, neck and arms, she established a slow tempo. She took him just a little deeper every time she lowered herself onto him, sending ripples of growing pleasure through her body. And every time, she rose a little higher on the upstroke and made her desire for him more intense. He followed her lead and started moving his hips in counterpoint to her while his fingers caressed any inch of her he could reach. But as time passed, she could see the need growing on his face, just like she could feel it in his touch when he closed his hands at her hips to try to accentuate her movements. She shook her head, smiling lightly. “My game, my pace. You will find release for me, handsome, by me, and not until I tell you to." A fleeting frown marred his features, and Gabrielle wondered if it was the command or the endearment that had brought it forth. It hardly mattered either way. "I am your Sire,” she continued just as softly, but punctuated the last word with a harsher thrust of her hips down. “You will obey me in this, as you will in everything else. Do you understand?" She kept the same rhythm as she waited for his answer, sliding easily onto his cock until he filled her just perfectly, then rising again, just on the edge of losing him. His mouth moved wordlessly for a few seconds, but he finally found his words. "Yes ... Yes, I understand. But please, please...” His voice broke on a half sob. “I can't ... Please, Sire, I can't do as you ask..." Gabrielle's smile hardened a little as she gradually increased her pace, riding him harder with both hands on his chest for support. Erik closed his eyes as tightly as his hands closed on her hips. "I'm not asking you for anything, Erik. I'm telling you what to do. And I know you're not going to disappoint me. Not now." She didn't know whether it was the utter confidence of her tone or his desperate need for release that spurred him into action, but he stopped trying to arch into her to reach his own pleasure, and instead fumbled with slightly trembling hands to increase her own. His fingers returned to her breast and, a little less gently than before, massaged, stroked and pinched until Gabrielle started losing her own rhythm into that of his caresses. Biting back a moan, she took hold once more of his hand and led it to the apex of her legs. She hissed in pleasure when he pressed his thumb hard against the aching nub there; he took that as his cue to repeat the action, again and again, senseless pleas falling from his lips as he did.

She waited until she was on the edge herself before granting him permission in a whisper—"Now, Childe". Erik's hips snapped up, pushing him deep inside Gabrielle one last time as pleasure finally broke through and rippled through her, making her moan his name as she threw her head back. Both their bodies were shaking when Gabrielle lay down against Erik. He was breathing hard beneath her, trying to catch a breath he didn't need anymore. She knew she would miss the involuntary reflex when he finally outgrew it. Then again, it had taken her decades to learn not to breathe, so she probably would have time to enjoy this quirk in Erik. She started sliding to rest on her side next to him, but his arms tightened ever so slightly around her, holding her where she was. She tensed at that, unwilling to let herself be dominated in any way, but Erik's murmured words appeased her. "Please. Stay." She allowed herself to relax again, her head nestled in the crook of his neck, her lips barely brushing against the healing scars that made him hers. They wouldn't be able to remain like this for long, the night was only starting and there was much to do still, but for a little while, it couldn't hurt to simply enjoy the feel of her Childe beneath her, and the gentle, almost timid glide of his fingers up and down her back. A question slowly made its way to the forefront of her thoughts, and Gabrielle almost asked it aloud before thinking better of it. She didn't need to know whether Erik had loved other women before her. He had been reborn this night, as her Childe and lover, and that was really all that mattered.

Chapter 3 When Gabrielle roused completely again, the pain was still there, but the smallest involuntary movement quickly proved that her body was bound tight. She cracked an eye open and when her vision adjusted she could see that it wasn't ropes that bound her as she had first thought. Her chest, right arm and left thigh were bandaged, the cloth tinted red in places. The sheet tucked tight under her that prevented her from rolling to her side was also, faintly, stained in blood. Recognition struck, and she looked around. Not only her sheets, but her bed, her bedroom, her home. It was only a modest house, deep in the forest, that she had found by accident while traveling one night. Its previous occupants had probably been chased off by demons. There were only two rooms to it, the bedroom and the common room, and a small barn outside. She never lit the fireplace, unwilling to give herself away with smoke. When she had kept a horse, she had used the well outside to water the animal; now, she only used the water to clean herself after hunts. After living for more than three centuries in a proper lair, the change had been abrupt, and appropriately humbling. But how had she ended here? Had she been weak again and fled in front of the sunrise? No, it couldn't be that, she couldn't have taken care of her wounds like this, nor could she have reached the house in time before the sun had appeared. She tried to sit up, but flares of pain in her body quickly made it clear that it was a bad idea. More blood seeped into the sheet, and she watched the growing red circle as she tried to remember. She had gone out. Ready to put an end to it all. And found exactly the kind of attention she had sought, her current state was proof enough of that. But then ... What had happened?

A flash ran through her mind, an angry storm of gray, and the memory was back. Erik. The younger vampire was the reason she wasn't dust. She remembered, now, episodic and broken pieces of the trip home, Erik's silence even as Gabrielle had pleaded to be left alone, the pain of the bones being set and bound, a wrist pressed to her mouth... She could still recognize the taste on her tongue, which meant that it hadn't been so long ago. And yet, there was no trace of the other vampire. "Erik?” she called out, not bothering to make her voice loud, knowing that Erik would hear her if he was in the common room. There was no answer. She repeated the name, annoyed now, with the same lack of result. Grinding her teeth, she once again struggled to sit up. She could tell that it was night; she must have slept the whole day. If she was going to heal, she needed to go hunt for more blood. If she wasn't, she still needed to get outside, to find a clearing to wait for sunrise. She wasn't sure yet what her destination was; she would figure it out on the way. But she hadn't even reached the bedroom's threshold when her legs gave out under her, and she fell, face first, crying out in pain when she caught herself on her injured arm. She fought to stop her instinctive and so-painful breathing, and within seconds, she was staring at a pair of soft leather boots. "What are you trying to do?” Erik demanded harshly. “Paint the floor with your blood?" Erik seemed almost brusque as he picked her up and carried her back to bed, but she barely felt a twinge of pain as he did, proof if need be that his lack of gentleness was nothing more than a façade. Gabrielle stared at him as he took a couple of steps back, her eyes attracted despite herself to his bare chest, and in turn he stared back at her. Many times, in the last centuries, she had wondered if her Childe was still in the world or if he had found peace yet. Many times she had missed him. Many times she had regretted the way they had parted after what should have been the greatest accomplishment of their clan. Regretted, also, the way she had left the younger vampire without a goodbye. It was good to see him, but it was almost frightening to see how cold his eyes had become. "Hungry?” Erik asked. Gabrielle nodded, unable yet to articulate a word. It was her Childe in front of her, a man with whom she had lived and shared a bed for more than a century. But at the same time, with each unfeeling word, each cold look, she realized she was in the presence of a stranger. "Going to get yourself dusted as soon as you're good enough to walk out of here? ‘Cause if you're going to, there's no sense in wasting good blood on you." The contempt in that voice was painful, but the smallest bit of anger belied it, and Gabrielle felt a trace of relief. If Erik was angry that she had tried to find her final rest, if he had saved her, brought her here, then that meant he still cared about her. They hadn't been on the best terms before the battle; Erik had argued every time Gabrielle had been close enough to hear that the risk wasn't worth the reward, that they ought to contact other clans to organize their defenses against the demons rather than try something so dangerous by themselves. He had even suggested teaching humans how to defend themselves. Gabrielle hadn't listened, and she had demanded from her Childe total obedience, something she hadn't done since they had stopped sharing a bed, and rarely even before that. But if Erik did care ... Gabrielle fought the smile that was pushing to her lips, the first of its kind in many,

many years. "I won't,” she promised quietly. Erik remained immobile for a few seconds, and then he nodded and came to her. He knelt on the floor at the head of the bed, reminding her of how he had knelt at her feet the night she had met him, and brought his wrist to her mouth, just close enough that at her smallest movement her lips caressed his skin. He didn't flinch at the contact, but she did, remembering a past that she had thought forgotten, and a lover, a Childe that she had believed was lost to her. But he was here, now. He had saved her from the humans and the sun, he had taken care of her, offered his blood to her and was doing so again. She wished she could have told him how much it all meant to her, how much his simple presence by her side made her decision to end her life seem foolish. But the deep hunger of her healing body demanded that she feed; there would be time for talking later. Time for explanations, apologies, and proper reunions. For now, the almost forgotten yet still familiar feeling of her fangs sinking not just into any flesh, but his, her first Childe's, was enough. She closed her eyes as his blood rolled on her tongue. It had been two hundred years since she had tasted him last; with the passing centuries, he had grown stronger than she remembered, as strong as she had imagined he would become, a Master in his own right, and yet he was sharing with her when she had no right anymore to demand anything of him. The temptation to keep pulling on his blood was deep, as was the one to draw him in the bed next to her. But he had already fed her earlier, and when she opened her eyes she could tell, by the painful tightening at the corner of his eyes, that she had reached the limits of what was reasonable. She retracted her fangs and licked the neat punctures she had created until they closed. She was about to urge him to lie down next to her when he pulled his arm back and stood. He was already turning away when she thanked him. He didn't reply. "Get some rest,” Erik advised her instead, before leaving the room. Gabrielle called his name, too many questions cluttering her mind about where he had been all this time, what he had done. Whether he would stay. But Erik didn't stop, didn't look back, and after a moment it didn't matter because Gabrielle drifted back into dreams. **** The sun was barely peeking over the horizon when Gabrielle stumbled into the ruins that would save her and the unresponsive vampire she had dragged to safety. Their lair was destroyed, but what was left of it should protect them from the sun until night. As soon as she let go of him, Erik curled up on the floor, a tight, quivering ball that didn't respond when Gabrielle tried to tell him to get a grip. Too exhausted to fight anymore, be it with words instead of hands, Gabrielle sank to the floor too, leaning against a broken wall, allowing aching limbs to find some rest. After a few seconds, her Childe's soft whimpers became too much to bear, and she reached out to him, pulled him to her lap, and bit softly the curve of his neck with blunt teeth. Erik froze instantly. Relieved that he had calmed down, Gabrielle began letting go, but clutching hands protested, held her tight, right where she was, asking for more without words. They had both lost too much blood for this, but at the same time they both needed it, she realized. Once more, she bit down, this time with razor sharp fangs. Flavor and strength exploded on Gabrielle's tongue, and she couldn't help drawing more than she had meant to, encouraged by Erik's quiet whimpers and the cock she could feel hardening against her belly.

The next few seconds were no more than a blur. They tore at each other's clothes, nails sharp as claws slicing through fabric, but also leaving faint bleeding scratches in their wake. The blood was too enticing to waste, and they took frantic turns licking and sucking at each other's skin. It had been a long time, since they had touched like this, a little less than two years that now felt like an eternity, but Gabrielle remembered—how could she have forgotten?—each and every spot that made Erik writhe and moan and plead for more with his hands, eyes and lips. And he remembered each and every one of hers. Blood, mouths and hands soon weren't enough anymore, and Gabrielle pushed Erik onto his back on the ground. He complied easily like the obedient Childe he had been in his first decades as a vampire. It wasn't about pretending he was indulging Gabrielle this time, though. They both needed the same comfort. Both needed contact. And each other. Erik cried out when Gabrielle straddled him and abruptly sank down on his cock, but he didn't try to fight her for control as he had so often done in the last few months of their sharing a bed. Hands simply resting on her hips, he let her find her pace, merely arching into her as though trying to slide deeper inside her. Gabrielle set a harsh rhythm, rising on her knees so only the tip of her Childe's cock remained in her, then grinding down hard even as he rose toward her. She never broke eye contact as she did, and let her hands play over his body, rediscovering hard planes and pale golden silk. His own hands were still at her waist, clutching tight enough that she knew new bruises would bloom there, holding as though to a safe line while his silent lips formed the word ‘Sire’ over and over again. And even as she enjoyed all of it, all of Erik, even as she finally closed her eyes to hold the pleasure at bay just a little more, make the sensations last just a little longer, Gabrielle hoped. She hoped this was more than a one-time encounter, more than cold comfort given and received from the only possible source, more than an ironic and painful celebration of life in the aftermath of a deadly battle. Even through their arguments, even though she had pushed him away, she had never stopped caring for her Childe, never stopped being proud of him, never stopped wishing he hadn't needed to leave. And now if he only would... "Be my favored Childe again,” she pleaded, breathless, as she looked at him again. His eyes were shut tight, and hints of tears gleamed at the corners of his eyelids. “We can build it all again, Erik. If you just join me, if you just want me..." He never answered. They came together with matching cries and tears. Gabrielle encouraged Erik to take blood from her, enough to heal his body, and they fell asleep together. When night came, she left her still sleeping Childe without a goodbye. His answer—or lack thereof—had been clear enough to her; she had no wish to ask only to be rejected again. No wish either to impose her will on him again, after her decisions had caused the near total destruction of her clan. **** Gabrielle woke with a jump, her body immediately protesting at the rush of pain the movement provoked. Stifling a moan, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to erase from her memory the dream of long gone times, of the pain her departure had created. How often had she regretted leaving Erik? How often had she tried to find him again? How often had she mourned what she had lost, what could have been...

"You're awake?" The rasping voice startled her, and as she opened her eyes she wondered how long Erik had watched her sleep. Wondered if the younger vampire knew. "Yes, I'm awake. How long have you been here?" Erik shrugged. “Couple of minutes. Was going to wake you. You slept a long time." Again, Erik's voice sounded ... strange. Different. As if he hadn't used it in a long time and was relearning how. "How long?" Another shrug. “Day and a half. Feeling better?" Carefully taking mental inventory of her body, Gabrielle realized that yes, she did feel better. It would be a few days still before she was healed enough to be out and about, but it should have taken a lot more than that. The taste of blood on her tongue told her exactly what had happened. Erik had fed her his blood again. Blood from a Childe, but also from a Master vampire in his own right, Gabrielle could hardly have been offered anything better. She wanted to ask why, to thank him again, to just say something, but she didn't know where to start. When she didn't answer, Erik came to the bed and pulled the sheet away, exposing her body. Apart from the bandages, she was naked, and she suddenly felt very self-conscious. It was silly, really. Erik had seen her naked too many times to count, had touched every inch of her body with hands and lips and she had never hid before him. And yet, at that instant, she wanted to do exactly that. She wanted to hide from him what years of fighting on her own and feeding too little and from animals and demons had done to her. There was nowhere to go, however, and all she could do was close her eyes so she wouldn't see the pity or disgust on his face. The mattress of dried grass shifted under her as Erik sat down at her side. Gentle hands touched her thigh, lightly coaxing it upward so that the bandage around it could be undone. Dried blood made the removal of the last few inches tricky, but Gabrielle never felt a twinge of pain as Erik continued his careful ministrations. He stood and left the room then, and Gabrielle opened her eyes to look at her leg. A long, jagged red slash marred it, both sides of the closed wound dirty with dried blood; she could remember, vaguely, a sharp rock used by one of the humans who had attacked her. She hadn't realized she had been cut so deeply by the rudimentary weapon. Within seconds, Erik came back with a large bowl full of steaming water. Sitting down again next to her, he soaked a piece of cloth in the water and wrung it before lightly dabbing at her thigh. Gabrielle watched his hand for a moment, the precision and care of his movements, before shifting her gaze up to his face. He was entirely focused on what he was doing, and the look of concentration was familiar. What was not, however, was the total lack of feelings reflected on his features, and this realization felt like a blow to Gabrielle. Abandoning her observation, she closed her eyes again, and let her mind wander to the past. Before they had started organizing in quasi-military troops, demons had never been very hard to kill, but occasionally a hunt had ended with blood shed on the vampire side of the fight. More than once over the years, Gabrielle had been the recipient of Erik's tender care, although he had rarely needed to do more than clean her wounds and bandage them. She had had the occasion to return the favor, more frequently

in his early years, and less often as he had become a better fighter. It had always been a prelude to another kind of touching, more intimate, and even now Gabrielle's body remembered it as clearly as her mind. It didn't take long for her to start wishing the warm cloth would find its way higher up her thigh and to her folds. The wetness that was pooling there had to be obvious to Erik, and Gabrielle soon realized that the scent of lust didn't come only from her. But Erik pretended not to notice, and as he finally finished cleaning her thigh he simply stood and took the water bowl to the other room without a word or a look at her. Gabrielle clenched her fists at this clear dismissal, refusing to give in and touch herself, and was glad for it when he returned moments later. This time he went to the other side of the bed and, as carefully as earlier, unwrapped the bandage from her arm. "Does it still hurt?” he asked as he manipulated her arm, looking up at her for the first time since he had started tending to her. She was almost glad to hear in his cracking voice that he wasn't as unaffected as he pretended to be. "A little,” she replied as coolly as she could, as though her scent wasn't telling him her calm was all pretense. "The break was clean,” he continued as he picked up the length of cloth and started wrapping it around her arm again. “It'll probably heal just fine as long as you let it." She wanted to snap at him that she knew that, seeing how she had taught him as much mere weeks after she had sired him, but she managed to contain herself. "Sit up,” he requested when he was done, and helped her by sliding a hand to her back. His touch remained completely neutral as he undid the bandages wrapped around her torso, and Gabrielle bit her lips not to moan when, a couple of times, by accident, the back of his hand brushed the underside of her breast. Her nipples hardened instantly, another obvious clue of her desire that he refused to see. Still as gently, he ran a hand over both her sides, checking her ribs, she realized. "You had three broken ribs as far as I could tell, maybe more.” Again, his eyes slid to her face. “Do you want to keep the bandages a little longer?" She shook her head, unwilling to endure any more torture under his too gentle, too careful hands, and lay back down again. "Hungry?" The word was stripped of all emotions, as unfeeling as Erik's hand as he drew the sheet up to her chest, and Gabrielle resented him for being able to put away everything they had been and treat her as though she were no more than a hurt stranger in his care. She wanted to deny the hunger, especially since she could guess what blood she would be given again, but she simply couldn't. She was indeed hungry, she craved blood, his blood, and she couldn't refuse. Swallowing hard, she nodded, and soon he was offering his wrist to her. Again, she warred with herself, wanting nothing more than to taste him again, and hating the way he had been ignoring her need and his own. Giving in yet again, she took hold of his wrist and bit in hard, feeling a twinge of satisfaction at his hiss of pain. She only took a few mouthfuls, letting go of him before she was sated simply because she didn't want to show him exactly how hungry she was. He didn't comment on it, nor did he answer her thanks as he moved around the bed and to the entrance

of the room. There, he seemed to hesitate and turned back to look at her. "Can you stand?” he asked blankly, and watched without moving when Gabrielle tried, and succeeded. "Good. I've got places to be. Can't stay here when you can take care of yourself." A long, blank stare seemed to dare Gabrielle to say otherwise, and when she didn't Erik nodded. "Right then. I'd better be going." And like that, without further goodbyes, he turned around and walked out of the bedroom. Gabrielle blinked, unsure what had just happened. Was he leaving for good? His tone implied as much, but why ... he couldn't ... not after so long, not when Gabrielle needed him so much, not again... Stumbling, she followed after, stopping to lean again the wall when her ribs and leg protested at the movement. Erik was just reaching the door when Gabrielle called his name, and she was relieved when long, elegant fingers hesitated on the door handle. "Please, don't,” she murmured. “I can't live like this anymore. Can't live alone. Can't go on night after night knowing that you're somewhere out there as lonely as me. Knowing I left you to fight alone when we could have fought together, side by side again." Hand still on the door, his back still turned to Gabrielle, Erik did not answer. "Please,” Gabrielle repeated, her voice breaking. “Stay with me." Erik shook his head, took a sharp breath, and walked out.

Chapter 4 It was the scent of blood that drew him. It was always the scent of blood. Towns and villages were different, he had even crossed seas in his travels, but everywhere it was the same, everywhere people bled because of humans and demons alike, everywhere the blood smelled the same. Except that this time, the blood smelled different. This time, it was familiar. It smelled like family, like home. It wasn't a complete stranger Erik had found bleeding tonight, and even as he slid off his horse and walked forward, he wasn't sure how he felt about that. He had spent years hunting and running away from demons, literally and figuratively, always fearing and wishing in the same instant that he would find Gabrielle again, always hoping that he would find a clan, a place in the world instead of roaming without ever stopping. No, not years. Decades. Centuries. Erik was tired, so very tired, and yet he kept going, night after night. He owed it to those who had died when he had lived. He owed it to the humans he had sworn to protect the night he had risen as a vampire and accepted his first offering of blood. He owed it to himself, because he had been one of them, so long ago that he could barely remember it. He owed it to his clan, to his Sire, even if she had all but disowned him. It was a different world he now lived in, so different that the members of his clan wouldn't have recognized it. They had lost their wager to stop all demons with one battle, one bit of magic, but the consequences had been greater than they had imagined. The rest of the world had changed from it. The Primal Forces Gabrielle had planned to enroll to fight the demons had been unleashed, and they had swept over the world, slaughtering vampires and humans instead of helping them before fading away

again. There were whole areas, now, in several territories, where humans and vampires had completely disappeared and demons roamed freely. Worse though were those enclaves, steadily growing in number and size, in which humans were something between slaves and cattle, and demons their owners. For a long time after the battle, the humans had continued to turn toward vampires for protection, had continued to offer their blood and to hope they would be safe again. But eventually, they had realized that things had changed, that the demons were spreading, that there weren't enough vampires to contain them, let alone stop them completely. It used to be that a Master and a few Childer could keep a dozen villages safe with little trouble. But when the Primal Forces had swept over the world, they had killed too many vampires and humans, and the balance had been upset. The already increased demon activity had only grown more steadily after that, and whatever vampires had been left had been simply overwhelmed. It had taken the humans some time to realize that, but they had eventually started to fight back for themselves. There were too few of them to make much of a difference, though. At first, Erik had watched them from afar, hating that they were saying, in actions if not in words, that they didn't need him and his race anymore. In time, he had taken pity on them and taught those who would listen how to fight. Without training, they often didn't live long, and few of them refused his help once they understood his purpose. It was always hard to communicate at first until they realized what was going on with him, but he had worked up a way to teach by showing to the humans how to fight rather than by giving them instructions, and he had gotten fairly good at it. He rarely stayed long in any one village, though. The reproach in the eyes of the same men he trained was too much to bear for long. They couldn't know how right they were, of course, but he did; his guilt, the guilt of his clan, was deeper than most vampires'. Because all of this had happened when Gabrielle had been too proud, too sure of herself, and had refused to hear warnings, including his. Erik had thought it had been a bad idea from the start, but he had never imagined it would all go so terribly wrong. Just like he had never imagined he would ever see his Sire lying on the ground, bloodied and totally unresponsive as a group of humans argued over her. He advanced toward them, growling and showing his fangs without a second thought. It proclaimed to the world what he was and how to kill him, true, but it also always sparked that fear carried throughout generations that gave him an added advantage in a fight. Even if they had stopped respecting vampires, even if so many Pacts were broken, humans were still scared, and always would be until the very last vampire was killed—or until the human race disappeared. Erik used to feel sorry when he fought humans. It was in part his fault that their universe had been shattered, and he understood all too well how lost they felt. But he had learned not to care. And so he fought hard and fast, breaking a few bones, making enough damage that they quickly gave up and ran away. He didn't plan on waiting long enough to know if they had gone for good or if they would return with reinforcements. In any case, the sun was going to rise soon, and he needed to get to safety. To get himself and Gabrielle to safety. As much as he blamed Gabrielle for what she had unwittingly caused, as much as she had pushed him away both before and after the battle, she was still Erik's Sire, and that blood link came before everything else. He approached and for a few seconds merely watched her, still sprawled on the ground, eyes closed. Gabrielle looked dead, lying there in her own blood, and suddenly Erik was flashed back to the aftermath of another battle, when he had gone from one body to the next, searching in vain for someone who would wake until Gabrielle had found him instead. It wasn't lost on him that the situation was now reversed, that Gabrielle was waiting for the sun as Erik had been back then, that he was going to bring her to safety as Gabrielle had done so long ago for him. The parallel would stop there, he promised himself.

Gabrielle's eyes opened, closed, opened again. Erik did his best to glare at her. He had no sympathy for anyone who stopped fighting. That was something she had taught him herself. "Have you lost the last sane bits of your brain?” he said, and it felt strange to talk after so long. “What the hell is wrong with you? Trying to get yourself dusted?" Gabrielle didn't reply, merely closed her eyes again, dismissing him. It irritated Erik beyond words. He was there, whether Gabrielle was happy to see him or not, and he wasn't going to leave like that. At least, not yet. He owed a life to his elder, and he would pay his debt. Gabrielle's pain was obvious when Erik grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, and he tried despite himself to be gentler, mentally berating himself for it. Gabrielle had put herself in this situation, she deserved the pain. Even so, it was a relief when his Sire stopped struggling and became limp in his arms, blessedly passed out. Climbing onto the horse while carrying her was an accomplishment in itself; it would have been easier to throw her across the saddle before jumping on, but he was afraid to hurt her more than she already was, and so he kept her in his arms, and held her closer and more carefully than he would have dared to if she had been awake.

Chapter 5 + Three centuries earlier "Did I ever tell you how pretty you are when you pout, my Childe?" Indignation battling with shame, Erik tried to discipline his features even as his Sire continued to laugh. "I am not pouting,” he claimed, teeth clenching despite himself. “I am no child." Gabrielle was still laughing lightly; Erik looked at her, his eyes throwing daggers. His horse snorted and took an unsteady step, and he realized he had been twisting the reins. Trying to control his temper and relax, he remained silent, staring straight ahead into the night. "You are no child,” Gabrielle conceded when her laughter had faded. “But you are jealous as one." "I am not..." The high pitched, angry tone of his voice was making it all too clear that he was, indeed, jealous, and Erik forced himself to be quiet. "I wasn't my Sire's first Childe,” Gabrielle continued as though he hadn't spoken. “Nor was I ever his favored Childe. So I never had much of a reason to be jealous of Childer he made after me. But I saw how his favorite acted, whenever he went to seal a new Pact. And you, my dear, are acting exactly the same way. As a spoiled Childe who is afraid he will lose his Sire's attentions." Erik had nothing to answer to that, simply because it was true that he was worried—not afraid, simply worried. He had been standing by Gabrielle's side for seven years, now, her first and only Childe, her partner when she fought demons, the lover in whose arms she spent her days. And as much as he hated to admit it, he was worried of losing his place in her life.

A village had been founded, a few weeks back, on the edge of the territory that Gabrielle protected. Its council had soon started approaching Gabrielle about sealing a Pact with her, and she had accepted. Erik had been rather excited at first. A larger territory meant more work for them, but also more artisans at their service, and a new supply of fresh blood. It still felt strange to him, sometimes, to accept blood from people he had grown up with, and the new village would send someone new to the lair each day to offer blood to them in tribute. What Erik hadn't realized until this night however was that Gabrielle would choose someone from the new village to make her Childe, just like she had chosen him, seven years earlier. Standing a few steps to her side while she had talked to her potential Childer after the shared blood ceremony, he had had a perfect view of her reactions to the candidates, and of what said candidates had looked like. It was all too easy to imagine she would grow fond of one of them enough to give him Erik's place in her bed and heart. After all, it had only taken her a few hours to decide to turn him and make him her lover. He was still thinking of these young men and women and wondering which of them he would need to deal with when they reached their lair. Gabrielle startled him when, having slid of her horse, she tossed the reins at him. "Enough with the dark mood,” she said, the laughter from earlier completely gone from her eyes. “Take care of the mounts, and try to clear your head of this jealousy of yours before you join me." Although he bowed his head in submission, Erik had no intention to stop worrying, certain that if he did, he would without a doubt lose his place. He would need to be stealthier about it, though, he reflected. Maybe try to influence Gabrielle into choosing a woman, or an older man she would show no interest in bedding. And once she did choose a new Childe, he would need to make clear that he was Gabrielle's favorite, and that he would let no one take his place. She had to have more Childer, not only was it the custom to seal the Pacts, but it was also necessary to have enough fighters to protect a given territory. But nothing said she had to treat each of them as she had treated him since the night he had risen. It was with a newfound determination that he finally joined her inside the lair, having secured the horses in the stable and quickly brushed them down. A village worker would come in the morning to take care of them. Striding inside the lair, he closed the heavy wooden door behind him and followed the scent of his Sire to the bedroom they shared. The lair had two more, currently unoccupied, and Gabrielle had drawn plans to have more rooms added in time, but until now they had only used the bedroom and the feeding room, where they received each day their blood offerings. He paused by the bedroom entrance as he took in the sight of his Sire. Vampires didn't feel the cold, but he had long ago discovered that Gabrielle loved anything that could warm her skin; she was now standing by the fireplace, in front of a roaring fire, completely nude. The demon part inside of him flinched at that, warning him of the danger of flames, but Gabrielle seemed to have no such instincts. "The night I first came to your village,” she said coolly, her back still turned to him, “I was determined not to choose a Childe right away. I wanted to take my time, and pick someone who would make the best possible companion for me, be it man or woman. I wasn't looking for a lover. All I wanted was a Childe." Erik had started walking toward her as she talked, but he paused, confused.

"I thought ... I thought all Sires bedded their Childer." She finally turned toward him, and for a moment he was too captivated to listen to her words. She usually kept her long hair in a braid that fell to the small of her back, but she had undone it tonight, and the soft auburn waves framed the deceptively delicate curves of her body beautifully. He belatedly caught on to what she had said and frowned in incomprehension. "But you took me as your lover,” he started, and she interrupted him with a shake of her head. "Did you listen to me? I didn't want to choose anyone the night I chose you. But you ... you stood above the rest. You caught my eyes, and my curiosity, and before I even bit you that night I knew you'd eventually get my heart, too. And I was right. You did." In seven years, it was the first time she had ever came close to admitting she had more affection for him than what their blood bond provided, but he saw through her words, right to what she wasn't saying. One of the first things she had ever taught him was that vampires didn't use the word ‘love'; they were reputed not to be able to experience the feeling. But Erik had realized that it wasn't true, because he had fallen in love with his Sire, and loved her more than, as a human, he had ever loved anyone. Something in him demanded that he reciprocate the declaration, but he knew that Gabrielle would not appreciate hearing the actual words. At a loss as to what to say, he simply walked to her and put one knee to the ground in front of her. He had been in front of her like this when she had first talked to him; he remembered, too, what he had felt when her gaze had fallen upon him. "Still worried, my Childe?” she asked with a slight smile as she caressed his cheek with the tips of her fingers. He thought about it for a second or two before giving her a truly honest answer. "No, Sire." "Then come to bed." Her hands were immediately on him as he stood, removing his cloak with a twist of her wrist, tugging his tunic free of his breeches and pulling it up over his head before dropping it to the floor. She stopped helping undressing him at that point and went to sit on the bed, but he could feel her eyes on him, caressing as he fumbled with his boots before getting rid of his pants. Had he been human, his cheeks would have been ablaze by the time he finally turned toward her, his cock jutting proudly from his body; she was smiling when she extended her hand to him, and he joined in her bed without waiting any longer. He had by no means been an innocent when she had made him her Childe, but their first night together after his rebirth had left him in awe. She was an intensely sensual woman, and vampire stamina made her very nearly insatiable. This night, though, when she had revealed to him just how deeply her feelings for him ran, had to be special. If he couldn't tell her in words, he had to do it with his hands, his mouth, his cock, and leave no doubt in her mind. She had to know, when she chose that other Childe, that Erik would always be hers. She quickly thwarted his plans to worship her, however. As they lay down together and started kissing, small, chaste kisses meant more to tease than arouse, her hands were already on him, her fingers barely touching his skin yet leaving a trail of fire in their wake on his back, his sides, his thighs, his chest, never coming to his cock that craved her touch more than anything. Deepening the kiss and taking possession

of her mouth, he tried to return each touch, each caress, and to make her forget about pleasuring him to let him pleasure her instead. But she matched him stroke for stroke, cradling his cock in her palm when he cupped her breast, giving him a few moments to kiss and lick along her shoulder before reversing their positions and doing the same to him, and making him feel like she was worshipping him as much as he did her. Before long, he was panting, his breath ragged as she took him closer and closer without letting him come; but for once, she didn't grin and point out to him that he didn't need to breathe. This time, she was breathing just as hard as he was. Finally sliding inside her was like coming home and they both stilled at the sensation, watching each other as they lay side by side, her leg thrown over his hip to give him access to her core and hold him closer. "You're beautiful, Erik,” she murmured with a slight smile. “I couldn't have dreamed of a more wonderful Childe." Answering, after that, that he couldn't have dreamed himself of a more wonderful Sire felt too weak of a declaration, and instead of talking, he covered her lips with his, and started thrusting inside her, shallow movements that progressively became stronger as she accompanied him and amplified his motions. After the way they had teased each other, this couldn't last long, and too soon Erik was trembling in the cocoon of her arms and body, trying to fight off his release until she reached her own. "Bite me,” he pleaded, his voice hoarse with pleasure. “Take my blood, Sire. Please..." "I shall. And you shall do the same." Surprise at her words made Erik cease to move, and Gabrielle took the opportunity to roll their bodies so that she was lying on top of him. The tilt of her head, offering her neck to his mouth, was too enticing to resist despite the shock of it; Erik had been offered blood from her wrist many times, but never, never from her neck, never like this... His fangs sank into her flesh only a second before she bit him, and pleasure tore through him, making him arch one last time into her, at the instant her blood touched his tongue.

Chapter 6 It wasn't so hard to follow Gabrielle's scent back to her lair. Good thing, that. Erik didn't know what he would have done if he had been stuck outside during the day with his wounded Sire. He had become adept at finding hiding places for himself, but she was too hurt for any of his tricks. Still, if Gabrielle's scent hadn't been so clear all around the house and inside it, Erik might have found it difficult to believe she lived there. The small habitation entirely made out of wood and barely furnished was a far cry from the lair they had once shared, with its cut-stone walls, large rooms and heavy furniture. Then again, it was better than what he could call his lair on most days. He quickly found the bedroom, stripped Gabrielle, tended to her wounds and broken bones, cleaned her, all the while trying not to look at her. It had been a long time since he had seen a woman like this; even longer since he had touched one; and it had been centuries since it had been Gabrielle beneath his eyes and hands. The memory had faded with time, or so he had thought, but to breathe in her scent again, to caress her skin was bringing all of it back, and making his body yearn for hers. He managed not to take advantage of the situation, but couldn't have explained how he did.

When he was done, his hands were covered in blood. He stared at them for a long time before finally giving in and slowly licking them clean. The taste was glorious, as glorious as he remembered, and it was a struggle not to bend to that tempting neck and take more. Instead, he tore his own wrist and pushed it against Gabrielle's mouth. His Sire was still unconscious, but instinct took over and she suckled on the blood offered to her until Erik pulled away. Mind blank, cock achingly hard, Erik tucked the sheet tight under Gabrielle's body so she wouldn't move and hurt herself while sleeping, and left the room. He had to go out and take care of his horse before the sun rose, but he could barely walk in his state, and couldn't think or focus, his mind still in that room, still in front of his naked Sire whom he couldn't, wouldn't touch. Unfastening the laces of his breeches, he leaned back against the bedroom wall and pulled out his cock. Gabrielle's scent was all around him, even stronger for her blood on his clothes, and all he had to do was close his eyes to see in his mind Gabrielle and himself, hunting and feeding together before fucking, still covered in demon blood. His cock hardened even more at the memory and he shut his eyes tighter, trying to summon not only the sight, but the sounds, harsh pants and frantic pleas, the smell, blood and lust and come and want, the taste, sweet blood, strong blood from his Sire and lover, the feel of her hands on him, of his cock entering her... He came with images of Gabrielle dancing in his mind, and a curse on his lips. For long, very long minutes, he remained there, staring at nothing, wondering what he would do. He was tired, so tired of being alone ... it would have been so easy to stay, take care of Gabrielle, find a place in her life again. So easy. Too easy. Shaking the fantasy away, he tucked himself in and fastened his clothes again before pushing away from the wall and striding out, quickly assessing how much time he had left before the sun became a problem. With the cover of the trees, he would have enough time to take care of his horse and clean up, he estimated. A double snap of his fingers brought the well-trained stallion running back to him, and he stroked its side as he led the animal to the small barn. With the quickness and efficiency of habit, he cleaned, fed and watered the horse before locking the door behind him and returning to the well. Shedding his tunic, he washed as well as he could the blood and come off it in a bucket before quickly washing himself. Then, his step heavy with incertitude and confusion, he entered the house again. Gabrielle was still asleep in the only bed, and although it was large enough for two, he didn't even consider joining her in it. Instead, he took a seat at the table in the common room, and, resting his head on his crossed arms, tried to fall asleep. But despite his fatigue, despite being safer in this heavily curtained house than he had been in many of his temporary lairs, he couldn't manage to find sleep, his mind haunted by too many memories. To have Gabrielle's scent so strongly around him was not helping anything. It was this same scent, and particularly that of her blood, that made him jump to his feet after a few hours when it suddenly became sharper, fresher. He found Gabrielle almost by the bedroom's entrance, lying on the floor, some of her wounds reopened if he was to believe the smell. "What are you trying to do? Paint the floor with your blood?" He tried not to be too harsh as he helped her back into bed, even if he was angry at her stupidity. Why had she tried to move when she was so hurt?

The answer was obvious, and Erik cursed himself for not thinking about it sooner. "Hungry?” he asked. Gabrielle merely nodded, a clear enough answer. But Erik needed to know something first. "Going to get yourself dusted as soon as you're good enough to walk out of here? ‘Cause if you're going to, there's no sense in wasting good blood on you." He hoped his fear wasn't too present in his voice, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Gabrielle answered, and for an instant Erik was confused. Had she said ‘I won't', or ‘I want'? And want what? Reading lips was a bore, even after so much time. When Gabrielle didn't add anything, Erik supposed that it had been ‘I won't', and nodded. Without even thinking about it any longer, he came to kneel next to her and offered her his wrist. Her fangs slid easily into his flesh, and he had to focus on something other than her as she drank not to become aroused. The black length of fabric draped over the room's window looked like it had been cut out of a cloak; he wondered, for a while, if it was hers, only noticing now that she had not been wearing a cloak when he had found her. She used not to ever go out without one, and he had once heard her joke that it was part of the vampire tradition to wear long, black cloaks. By the time she stopped pulling on his blood, he was hard again, and cursing himself for it. Trying to hide his discomfort from her, he quickly left the room, advising her to rest. There was a lot he would have wished to tell Gabrielle, a lot of questions he would have wanted to ask, but after two hundred years the pain was still fresh of waking up alone in the deserted ruins of their lair, and his pride wouldn't let him risk a repeat of that. He left the house to take care of his horse, and hunted for a few minutes for small game to feed from. It wasn't long though before he returned to the house, and after checking on Gabrielle, he took his own advice and tried once more to find sleep. **** Erik wasn't sure whether it was his body or his heart that hurt most as he curled up on the floor, closing himself to the world. Nothing left, in this world, for him. No one. He was aware, barely, of Gabrielle's presence, but her silence was painful. Why wouldn't she say anything? Why wouldn't she even say his name, acknowledge that she was seeing him, that they were still there together, that not everything was gone? A strong hand closed on his arm, pulled him until he was straddling Gabrielle's lap, but Erik continued to tremble, still convinced that he had lost everything and everyone that night. Blunt teeth closed on his neck, not painfully but hard enough that he couldn't ignore them, and he froze. Such a small gesture, but it meant everything to him. It meant he wasn't alone. And so when Gabrielle let go, Erik held her in place, silently begging for the connection to last. He had no warning before the fangs sank in his flesh, and he whimpered, both in pleasure and pain. He whimpered, but heard nothing. And in that instant, he realized that he hadn't heard a thing for hours, not since the Primal Forces had broken free from their cage in an explosion of noise and light. No sounds. No sounds at all. Fear mixed with pain and lust, and he tore at Gabrielle's clothes as she tore off his own, trying to find comfort and reassurance in touch since he couldn't find them in words. Blood welled up from scratches he inflicted on Gabrielle and he cleaned it off frantically, needing the additional contact and reveling in the

taste of his Sire as much as in her touch. It felt as though Gabrielle hadn't touched him in centuries, rather than a couple of years, and each slide of her fingers, each caress or pinch, brought him back to less complicated, happier times. Forgetting was good. Remembering, even better. And Erik remembered, quite well, having been as pliant under his Sire as he now was, letting her position his body as she wanted it. He had stopped submitting as thoroughly long before, but when raw lust and pure need were stronger than instinct, even the rebellious demon inside him quieted down and simply accepted. His shout, when Gabrielle roughly sank down on his cock, was as much one of pain as it was one of satisfaction at being claimed. Gabrielle's eyes remained locked to his as she rocked herself up and down onto him, and that connection, the feel of her around, above, so damn close, the so powerful scent of wanting and needing were enough to anchor Erik to the world. He had been ready to wait for the sun, earlier, but not anymore, not when he was wanted, not when he hadn't lost everything as he had believed he had. He only wished he had been able to express it, make it clear to his Sire, but how could he do that when he couldn't even hear the sound of his own voice? It wouldn't matter, he decided. He would find a way to tell Gabrielle just how much this—she—meant to him. Maybe she already knew anyway, why else would she be doing this, why else would they be coming together, sharing blood, going to sleep curled against each other? When Erik woke, late the next night, he was alone. He waited for Gabrielle to return, staring at the lightning bolts that tore the sky open in perfect silence. It took him three long days and three even longer nights to realize that his Sire wouldn't be coming back for him. **** Awakening from a bad dream, Erik stared at the wood grain of the table in front of him for a long time, trying to remember where he was. And then, the scent assaulted his consciousness, Gabrielle's scent, and everything came back to him. Wary, he went to the bedroom and leaned against the wall, watching his elder sleep. For a day and half, he watched her sleep, feeding her from his wrist a few times, practically seeing her heal in front of his eyes. The temptation existed to look around the house, try to guess what had happened to Gabrielle since the last time they had seen each other, but Erik fought it. He didn't want to know. Knowing would make everything even more difficult when it was time to leave. Finally, Gabrielle roused. They were only subtle changes in her body, but Erik recognized them immediately. "You're awake?" It was still strange to talk and not hear his own voice. He could feel the vibrations, and that helped him know whether he was talking loud enough to be heard, but he couldn't control his voice as he once had. "Yes, I'm awake. How long have you been here?" Keeping his eyes on Gabrielle's mouth, Erik shrugged. It had taken him a long time to learn how to read lips, and he couldn't do it perfectly, but it was good enough for small talk. “Couple of minutes. Was going to wake you. You slept a long time." "How long?"

"Day and half. Feeling better?" After Gabrielle had not answered for a few seconds, Erik realized she was testing her body. If she could do that, it had to mean she was much better. And as well she should be, seeing how he had fed her his own blood five times in the last two days. Unwilling to leave her alone for too long in case she would have awoken, he had hunted for small animals in the forest around the house and couldn't wait to feed properly. Humans were reluctant in offering blood to vampires these days, but they could be persuaded, when they were shown a few severed demon heads. And if everything else failed, demon blood tasted terrible but it was at least strong enough to satiate a vampire, unlike rabbits and foxes. Tired of waiting for an answer, Erik approached the bed, already steeling himself. He had purposefully refrained from checking her wounds until now so he wouldn't have to be so close to her naked body again, but if he wanted to know how far along her healing had progressed, he would have to check for himself. She closed her eyes when he tugged at the sheet and revealed her, and he was thankful for the reprieve. He wouldn't have wanted her to see he couldn't keep his eyes off her. She had changed, since he had last touched her with anything other than medical intentions. She had cut her long hair, so that its curls barely touched her shoulders. The main difference though was her weight. Vampires weren't supposed to change, but they lost weight when they didn't feed enough or properly. Judging by how frail this Gabrielle looked compared to the one that lived in his memories, he had no doubt that she hadn't been feeding right for a long time. That didn't explain however her refusal to fight back the humans who had attacked her. Even thinner, she had to have conserved most of her strength. One thing she definitely hadn't lost was her beauty, and it was hard for him not to reach out and simply run his fingers over her. Sitting down next to her, he tried to concentrate on his task, and nothing else. He was going to check her thigh, and for that he needed to touch her; there was nothing wrong with that. The fact that her skin was as silk under his fingers when he unwrapped the bandage was just completely beside the point. When he had finally discarded the length of cloth, he looked closely at the wound. It was still red, but it had closed nicely, and he was ready to bet that in a few months the scar would have faded away to nothing. Standing, he left the room for a few moments. He had pulled water from the well earlier, intending to use it to wash Gabrielle's wounds, and without pausing to think had put it to warm in the pot hanging in the chimney, and had lit a fire. Only after the flames had started rising, strong and hot, had he realized what had motivated his actions. Cold water would have cleaned blood off Gabrielle's skin just fine, but he remembered that she had always preferred warm water to clean herself, remembered baths they had taken together in a large copper tub they had had made for this very purpose, remembered too many things he wished he could have forgotten. Gabrielle's eyes were open as Erik returned to her with a bowl of hot water, and he was careful to keep his eyes down as he sat near her again and started cleaning the dried blood off her thigh. He forced himself to think of nothing as he did; he could feel Gabrielle's eyes on him, and he didn't want to open himself to more pain by revealing any of his feelings or thoughts. It was difficult not to let the memories take over, however, when the familiarity of his actions was still so fresh, even after centuries. Difficult, also, not to notice that Gabrielle was not unaffected by his touch, and difficult not to react to all of it. All he could do was pretend that nothing was going on, that his cock hadn't hardened to the point of pain, that he didn't want her. Thankfully, he was soon done with his cleaning, and taking the bowl of dirty water away gave him an excuse to have a moment to himself. Leaning for a few seconds against the table, he summoned a particularly painful memory back to his consciousness, and his erection subsided instantly. It wasn't a trick he liked to use often. His Sire had been anything but gentle when she had

replaced him in her bed, and the memory was still as painful as it was vivid in his mind. But it worked, and at that moment it was all that mattered. Returning to the bedroom, he was very careful not to breathe and take in her scent again as he walked to the other side of the bed. Her arm had been broken, and he held it carefully as he freed it from the bandage. He was soon satisfied that it was healing properly, but he looked at Gabrielle's face nonetheless and asked: “Does it still hurt?" "A little,” he easily read on her lips. If it still hurt, he figured, the bone must not have repaired fully yet. If she hadn't been underfed before he had found her, she would probably have been healed by now. As it was, it probably was safer to keep the bandage in place to prevent the bones from shifting by accident. "The break was clean,” he said, feeling the need to explain his actions even if he knew she probably understood them. “It'll probably heal just fine as long as you let it." He asked her to sit up once he was finished with her arm, and was unable to resist helping her with a hand against her smooth back. His hands were trembling as he unwrapped the bandages that had bound her sides, and as much as he tried not to touch her, it was too tempting to be this close to her and not do it. The first time was an accident, but as he saw her nipple harden when the back of his hand caressed the underside of her breast, he couldn't help repeating the gesture. Such a striking woman, so responsive, so... So cruel, too, sometimes. He held on to his resolve as he carefully checked her ribs, and kept his touch strictly about her healing. He couldn't tell whether she was fully healed; if her arm was any indication, she probably would need to remain bandaged. "You had three broken ribs as far as I could tell, maybe more. Do you want to keep the bandages a little longer?" Her headshake was answer enough, and he didn't insist when she reclined again. Wrapping that bandage around her again would have been torture for him. And speaking of torture... "Hungry?" Almost without conscious thought, he drew the sheet to cover her and noticed her frown at his actions. She didn't reply for long seconds, to the point that he wondered whether he had spoken aloud or not. Finally though, she nodded, and he presented his wrist to her. As a Childe, he had always offered her his neck; doing so now would have been too hard, which was why, even though she was conscious, he preferred to give her his wrist. Ritually, it was from their wrists that Masters fed their Childer, and he wondered if Gabrielle had picked up on the significance of his gesture. She might have, because she bit hard, almost angrily, and took very little blood from him, as though reluctant to do so. It was this, more than anything else, that made him look back after he had walked away. If she didn't want to rely on him, he certainly wasn't going to impose his presence on her. "Can you stand?"

He watched her, immobile, as she tried and succeeded. "Good. I've got places to be. Can't stay here when you can take care of yourself." Keeping his eyes on Gabrielle's face, Erik waited for an answer, for a plea, a request not to go. Nothing came, and he simply nodded, trying to hide his disappointment and berating himself for even feeling disappointed. He had known it would end this way, hadn't he? "Right then. I'd better be going." Blinking away the tears he refused to let come to his eyes, he turned around and walked out of the room. He only stopped in front of the door, one hand on the handle. Gabrielle was going to be fine, he repeated to himself. She didn't need him by her side to heal fully, and if she wanted to be dust, she would eventually manage to do it, whether he was there or not. It didn't matter that Erik was lonely enough to long for the sunrise again himself. It didn't matter that he had missed Gabrielle so much, hated her so violently, loved her even harder. It didn't matter, because he didn't matter to Gabrielle. Deluding himself into thinking otherwise was simply begging to be hurt once more. He wouldn't stay here only to have Gabrielle walk out of his life. Not again. Shaking his head at his own stupid hesitation, he took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of his Sire one last time, and walked out without a look back.

Chapter 7 Moonlight pierced the light clouds, and Gabrielle's gaze was drawn to the suddenly bright head in the middle of a group of patrolling humans a little ahead of her on the road. She only realized she had urged her horse to a trot when she was already halfway to them. But then the blonde girl laughed, head thrown back, and the illusion shattered. She gave the group of young people a last glance, deemed them safe as long as they would remain together, and directed her horse on another path. The night was still young, the predators, humans and demons alike, still in need of being found and dealt with. Her spirit was heavy as she let her mount choose its way; it always was when a sound, a flash of blond hair, the blue-gray of a sharp eye made her think of Erik. She had last seen her Childe ten months earlier, as Erik had walked out of her home without so much as a word of goodbye. She had hoped in the days, the weeks that had followed that Erik would be back, that his leaving was just a flare of temper, a revenge of sorts for Gabrielle doing the same to him so long ago. She had hoped, and her hope had sustained her, allowed her to keep fighting, keep living, keep searching, night after night. Keep searching for the one person who knew her, what she had gone through, what she had lost. The one person who could understand her, and whom she could understand. But even though she had acquired a horse to cover more ground as she looked for him, even though she had approached more humans in these few months than she had in the previous decades to ask them if they had seen Erik, she had found nothing but blank stares. She had eventually stopped asking. Had stopped hoping. Had tried to stop thinking about what had happened, what she could have said to convince Erik to stay. There was probably no answer to that. They had a history far too long to be solved with a few words. It had all started with the way Gabrielle had chosen him as her first Childe and, to her own shock, fallen in love with him. It had continued as she had lived many happy decades with him always at her side, even when she had made more Childer. The

end had come when she had finally realized she had to let him go and become a Master, create his own clan. He would never have listened to her if she had said it that plainly, and so she had found another way, and chosen someone else to share her bed. She had known she would hurt him by doing so, and she had in truth hurt herself just as much, but the break had allowed him to start looking beyond their clan. He had slowly distanced himself from her, then from her other Childer, and started hunting demons on his own. He had even found a human lover, in time, and Gabrielle was sure that, if the girl had survived their last battle, she would have been the first of Erik's Childer when he left the clan's lair for good. Gabrielle had often wondered what would have happened to Erik and to the girl if, as a last caprice, she hadn't demanded her first Childe's presence at her side for the spell that had freed the Primal Forces and the battle that had followed. As much as she could, she tried to avoid thinking of that battle, but the memory popped in to the front of her mind with frightening regularity. In the first years, she had dreamed of it every day, had relived the battle, the deaths, and awoken with the shouts and screams still ringing in her ears. The nightmares had slowly become less frequent, less vivid over the years, and she had been grateful. But since she had seen Erik, they had resurfaced, and were becoming more and more regular. She wasn't sure how long she would be able to endure it all now that her hope had faded again. What she knew, however, was where her life would end once she gave up. Never, since it had been destroyed when the Primal Forces had turned against her, had Gabrielle gone back to the village that had been the first to take her as Master. It had been ravaged by both demons and the Primal Forces that should have stopped them. When the anniversary date was close, like now, she invariably felt the need to return there, but she resisted it. She would return to the village, some day and she would wait for the sun there. It would be a fitting grave. There, she had fought, survived, and lost so much, more than she could afford to lose. What was left of the village was hers, somehow, her legacy, but she didn't want to, couldn't go there alone to pay her respects, not until her final night, nor could she go with anyone who hadn't shared the experience. That only left Erik. And Erik was nowhere to be found. And again—always—her thoughts were back to Erik. Was her Childe even still alive? His attitude—so cold, so distant even as he had saved Gabrielle's life—reminded her of herself. Loneliness, despair, and no prospect of anything getting better as day after day, decade after decade passed without changes other than the world disintegrating around her. "Mistress Gabrielle?" She tensed at hearing her name pronounced aloud. She couldn't remember the last time she had told someone what she was called. She couldn't remember either when she had last been given her title. Only those vampires who had met her before the battle knew her name, and there weren't many of them left. Stopping her horse and directing it to turn toward the voice, she discovered a girl who looked as if she had barely reached seventeen, dressed in the red and white robes of the humans who practiced magic. "Do I know you, child?" The girl's heart was beating faster than was normal and she held herself quite stiffly on her horse, yet there was no scent of fear coming from her, merely a sense of deep determination. "No, you don't. But you know the Master of my village. He is Master Lukas, from the northeast clan.”

She waited for Gabrielle's slight nod of recognition before continuing. Lukas and she had the same Sire, and he had gone to establish his own lair a good century before she had. “My name is—" Gabrielle cut her short. She wasn't interested in the child's name, or in anything the girl had to say, really, but she figured she would be left alone once she had allowed the girl to tell her why she was there. "What do you want?" The child let out a dry laugh that reflected the hard glint in her dark eyes; her body was young, but she seemed to have lived beyond her years. "I want you to fix what you destroyed,” she said flatly. “Because of what you did, humans are being chased and treated as slaves or food. Sooner or later, we'll be extinct and..." Gabrielle's mind shut off at the words, like her eyes, shut tight, and her hands closed into fists on her reins. Did the girl really think she didn't know all that? Wasn't she thinking about it enough already, and regretting that decision every day and every night? "How ‘bout you listen to what the child has to say before you take a nap?" Shock hit Gabrielle like a bucket of icy water, and she opened wide eyes to find Erik coming closer, his horse stopping next to the girl's. She had been so focused on the human, she had not even noticed her Childe. Before Gabrielle could make eye contact, the girl leaned over to lightly punch Erik's shoulder, drawing his attention to her. "I'm not a child, old man,” she protested, but the faintest smile drawn on her lip was proof enough that they were teasing each other. Gabrielle felt as if she was about to be sick, a very odd sensation for a vampire. Erik was here. He was back. After all of these months of Gabrielle searching for him, he had come back. With a lovely young woman who seemed to have the same feisty spirit his human lover had had, two hundred years earlier. "I don't want to hear about it,” Gabrielle said blankly, directing her horse with her knees to turn away from them. “Whatever it is, I don't care." "You don't care?” the girl repeated, raising her voice. “You turn the world into hell, you cause the death of almost every single member of your clan and..." "I warned you,” Erik growled. “Do not bring them into this." "And what do you suggest..." The two of them continued to argue, but Gabrielle wasn't listening; she refused to listen. She pressed her mount harder, never looking back. What was the point of fighting, again and again, the same battles? She had already lost this one.

Chapter 8 + Two hundred years earlier

For months now, Gabrielle had been watching her favored Childe with different eyes. She tried to see, in him, the same young man she had sired more than a century and a half earlier, but the more she tried, the more she realized how much he had changed. She had known it would happen; she had just hoped it would take longer than that. Sunrise was close, as she and five of her Childer rode back from battle, but they didn't need to hurry, the lair was only a few minutes away. They had been chatting like excited children when they had gone out to hunt that evening, but now they rode in near silence. The night had been long; together they had cleared a demon camp farther inside Gabrielle's territory than had ever happened before. The demons had been becoming more daring and unstable for years, but this was downright worrying. Gabrielle was both impatient and anxious to hear from the other clan members that had gone out to hunt that night, to see if they had found demons in such numbers and so deep within her territory, too. Something would need to be done about the situation, and soon. She had started thinking about old legends that might have a truth to them, but so far only had the mere beginning of an idea, nothing that she could call a plan. While earlier she had been leading the group, she was now riding behind her Childer, where she could keep an eye on them, and she could not fail to notice the way Erik went from one of the Childer to the other, sharing a few words with all of them, praising them for the way they had fought, or pointing out a flaw in their technique that could have proved deadly. It was only when he pushed his mount closer to Diana's, riding as close to her as he could and extending his arm to her, that a realization struck Gabrielle. He was acting as Gabrielle would have herself, had she not been so preoccupied with the demons’ attacks. Diana was the one amongst them who had been the most badly hurt tonight, when a demon's horn had speared her side before she could kill the beast. Someone had bound her side with a crude bandage before they had started riding again so she wouldn't lose too much blood while she waited until they reached the lair to ask one of the older Childer for blood; she could even have waited for the humans from the allied villages to bring their tribute the next day. But as far as Gabrielle could tell, before she had even asked, Erik had offered his wrist to her. Childer didn't share blood that way. Masters did. And by acting like this, more obviously than ever, Erik left Gabrielle no choice. The rising day, she decided, would be the last they would spend together. She had delayed it as long as she could, but now it was time. Still, even after having made that decision, she kept delaying. She took her time, once they reached the lair, gathering reports from the three other groups that had gone hunting, and even offered blood to two of her younger Childer who had been badly hurt. Her blood would help them heal faster. She had twenty-two Childer now, enough to keep her territory and its villages safe, but she couldn't afford to leave too many of them at the lair to heal while the rest of them went out to hunt. When at last she entered her bedroom, Erik was already in bed, clearly waiting for her. A fire was roaring in the fireplace, warming the air and her skin as she undressed, but it was nothing compared to the heat in his eyes. Any other night, she would have joined him right away and fucked the stress of the battle out of the two of them. This night, though, she took her time, using the water that had been put to warm by the side of the fire to clean the dust and bloody scratches that marred her skin. And all the while, she could feel her Childe's eyes on her, as passionate and loving as they had ever been. His fist was loosely stroking his cock when she finally joined him, and she shook her head when he let go

to reach for her. "Don't,” she requested, forcing a smile to her lips. “Just show me how gorgeous you are when you come, Childe." The amusement in his voice was clear, even as he answered with a perfectly polite, “As my Sire wishes.” If anyone other than him had talked to her like this, they would have learned their place in an instant. Maybe it was her fault, if she had to let him go so fast. Maybe she had hurried things by giving him too much freedom. Kneeling on the bed by his side, she watched him pleasure himself, her gaze sometimes following the hand that stripped his cock in a fast pace that she knew he wouldn't be able to sustain for long, sometimes drifting to his other hand where it alternated between stroking his balls and coming up to scratch at his flat nipples. She hadn't exaggerated, when saying he was gorgeous. His body was arching under his own touch, a melody of motions made even more beautiful by the shadows and light the fire cast over him. The whole time, his eyes remained on her, and it was finally with a word of her, the last order she intended to give him, that he came with a sigh. Lying next to him, she kissed his face and lips as he slowly drifted down from his pleasure, and caressed his body lightly, barely brushing the back of her fingers to his cock until she could feel it respond under her touch. Oh, how she would miss him... Her awareness and his ignorance that it was the last time they would make love made every caress, every kiss bittersweet. Gabrielle tried to learn one last time everything that was him, as their bodies danced with the familiarity given by thousands of nights and days spent together. She tried to fix in her memory the feel of his hand, sliding from her neck, over her breast and down to the apex of her legs; calluses from wielding a sword, and strength, but always so much gentleness. She tried to capture, also, the way he kissed her, her mouth or her skin, but had to give up on that; every single one of his kisses was different and unique. She memorized the way his body twitched under her caresses, the way his nipples peaked as she ran her thumb over them, the way his cock pulsed in her hand or seemed to complete her so perfectly when, at last, she stopped torturing the two of them and guided him inside her one last time. Then it was too late to try and remember, and all she could do was feel. They had fucked thousands of times since she had turned him; they had made love even more often than that. But this last time felt like the first, all over again. Afterwards, he fell asleep with an arm draped over her, and his cheek pressed to her shoulder. For the best part of the day, she remained awake, thinking on how lucky she had been to find him; few Sires kept the same Childe as a favorite for so long. Few were as blessed as she had been. When the time came to go out and hunt, the next night, she sent Erik with another group. They had fought separately before, and he didn't question her. When she returned to the lair before him, she chose another Childe practically at random and took him to her bed. That was a first, and all of those present in the lair when she made her choice stood still in shock until she had closed the door behind her and her soon to be lover. She had no doubt that Erik would be informed as soon as he returned, and although she expected him to enter her bedroom and demand an explanation, he didn't, nor did he say a word when she came out of her room to feed by mid-afternoon. She sent him to fight with another group again that night, and this time, he reacted, the surprise in his

voice battling the hurt in his eyes. She refused to listen. They slept apart again. After three days, each and every one of her Childer was watching them, and wondering what Erik had done to earn such disfavor. Erik clearly wondered the same thing. His pain, even as he stood tall and proud and refused to ask for an explanation, was tearing Gabrielle apart. She wished she could have told him why she was doing this. But if she had explained to him that the time had come for him to found his own lair and become a Master, she knew he would have refused to leave. She had to drive him away, make him ask her to release him. He would, eventually, she was sure of it; she had observed him for so long, she knew he was more than ready. She just didn't know how long it would take him to understand. And she hadn't known, also, that to watch him choose bed companions amongst his fellow Childer after a few weeks would be so difficult. Or that the hurt and anger slowly turning into hate in his eyes would be so painful to witness.

Chapter 9 Gabrielle returned to her house, with only a slight detour on the way through a clearing that demons often used as a base when they raided the closest villages. She was lucky—a group was there, that night. She didn't have a heavy weapon with her, only a dagger; a lone demon had broken her sword the previous night just as she had run it through its chest. It didn't stop her from rushing into the battle though, and soon she had collected a new sword, as well as an axe. She was covered in blood when she eventually abandoned the clearing, but very little of it was hers. She left behind her the demon bodies in a pile, their severed heads lined up in a row as a warning to the next group who would pass through her territory. Warnings did not work for long, but they sometimes gave her and her villages a few weeks of respite. She had expected Erik to be waiting for her when she reached her lair, but it was the girl whom she found sitting on the tree stump by her door. She was alone, and Gabrielle couldn't help taking in a deep breath; she found traces of Erik's scent in the air, but they were fading. He must have left some time earlier. Ignoring the girl, Gabrielle directed the horse to the stable and took care of it, taking her time and almost hoping the girl would be gone once she came out. Of course, she wasn't. Still pretending she wasn't there, Gabrielle walked to the side of the house, where the well stood, and drew a bucket of water. She washed her new sword and axe first, cleaning off the sticky blood that covered them before drying them carefully, propping them against the house's wall when she was done. The girl had followed, she noticed from the corner of her eye, but that didn't stop her from shedding her bloody clothes. She snickered when the child quickly turned her back on her. It always amused her how shy humans could be in front of naked flesh. Vampires didn't have such taboos. "If I have to do a spell to immobilize you so that you'll listen to me, I'll do it,” the child said with a slightly wavering voice, throwing a quick glance back at Gabrielle. “I've done it before, and it worked quite well on Erik. So you might as well let me talk." Picking up the washcloth and cup of soft soap she kept by the side of the well, Gabrielle snorted at the threat; it would have been a bit more impressive if the girl had been able to look at her. But she wasn't in the mood to fight anymore, and the sun would soon be up. She figured that the faster the girl said what she had to say, the sooner she'd be gone. "Nobody is stopping you,” she pointed out as she started running the soapy cloth over her body. “So,

talk. But you'd better be done by the time I'm finished cleaning up." Slowly, the girl turned toward her, clearly fighting her instincts about what was proper and what wasn't. Gabrielle paid her no mind and continued washing the blood off her body. "For seven generations, my village, under Master Lukas’ instructions, has looked for a way to end the war,” she said, and she sounded as though she were reciting. “We now have perfected a spell which will help restore order and peace over the lands." She paused, then, and her gaze on Gabrielle made it clear that she expected her to say something. She didn't. If the child couldn't see that things weren't going to change just because a few humans were going to cast a spell, she was a fool. She would learn soon enough, and the lesson would probably be painful. "We used magic to contact the Primal Forces you set free,” she continued, and Gabrielle started to pay a little more attention. “Master Lukas made a deal with them, to return things to what they once were." She paused again. Gabrielle picked up the bucket of water and emptied it over herself, washing away soap and blood. “How about you get to the point?” she snapped when she had thrown the bucket back into the well and the girl still hadn't continued. "We have the means to send you back to the past,” the child said with a calm that contrasted with the dangerous flame in her eyes. “We can tell you how to change the ritual you tried to use to harness the Primal Forces so that they will not kill humans as they are unleashed. We already asked Erik to go, but we'd like you to go too in order to double the chances of success, and when..." She kept on talking, but Gabrielle wasn't paying attention anymore. In her mind, she could see the battle as she had once envisioned it, her whole clan gaining power and respect from her daring actions, but also ridding the world of demons who couldn't accept that vampires and human were perfectly content to cohabit. "Are you listening to me?" Blinking, Gabrielle focused on the girl again, and the human sighed. "I know what you're thinking,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “Erik was exactly the same. But you can't save them. That's the catch. The Primal Forces will leave all humans alone, but they will slaughter the vampires as they did before. It is the payment they request for you disturbing them in the first place." Ice seemed to seep into Gabrielle's bones as she stared at the girl, unable to utter a word. "Everything will happen the same way,” the child continued, “except for a few words you'll need to add to the ritual. They will sweep over the world, and kill vampires, but they will leave humans alone so that there will be enough of us to give us a chance to fight back demons. Those are the terms of the bargain Master Lukas struck with the Primal Forces to send you back. If you try to change anything else, you'll just make everything worse." Gabrielle knew, before the girl even finished, what her answer was. See them all again, her clan, her family, know that they were about to die, because of her, and that she could do nothing to protect them? She couldn't go through that, not again. And at the same time, she knew why Erik had accepted. His human lover would be spared, this time around. He wasn't only going back to give humans a fighting

chance against demons; he was returning there to be with her. "No." The word was stripped of all emotion, as Gabrielle herself felt. The girl seemed about to insist, but her open mouth closed without a sound and she seemed to stand straighter suddenly. "I promised Erik I would accept your decision and not try to make you change your mind,” she said coldly. “But that won't stop me from telling you this. Some of my people died to make this happen. And they accepted it, because that's the only way we will survive as a race. And you ... you are given the chance to repair what you did, to save the humans you swore to protect, and—" "I thought you wouldn't try to make me change my mind,” Gabrielle cut in, earning herself an icy glare before the girl turned her back on her. She should have let her go, but she couldn't help it, and had to ask: "Where is he?" The girl didn't ask who, and after a few seconds of silence gave her the name of a village before striding away toward her horse. It was only when the tingle down her spine warned her of the imminence of sunrise that Gabrielle shook herself from her thoughts and entered her lair, leaving the clothes she had washed to dry outside, but taking the weapons in. She went to bed, trying to clear her mind from everything she had seen and heard that night. Erik and the girl, riding together. Were they lovers? The battle and how she could change it. How could Lukas have agreed to such a bargain? The deaths she couldn't prevent and those she could. Why had she lived when her whole clan, or almost, had not? When sleep finally took her, it was to offer her more regrets over things that could never be. **** Gabrielle had traveled for the best part of the night, changing her mind several times and turning her horse around until she had barely known anymore which way she was going—and which way she wanted to go. But, she had finally reached the village whose name the child had given her, and the first human she had questioned had been able to direct her to the small house on the outside of the village. She went there with more hesitation than ever and knocked before pushing the door open; there was Erik, sitting on the edge of the bed, his naked back to Gabrielle. "I didn't think you'd come,” he said quietly, almost too much so for her to understand the words. "I had to come,” Gabrielle replied, just as low. “I missed you," "Did you, now?” his voice turned bitter. “You're the one who kicked me out of your bed. You're the one who left, after the battle. No one forced you to live alone all these years." And it was true, oh so true ... Yet there was more to it, and it might have been time to explain to him. Silently, preparing her words, Gabrielle approached the bed and kneeled on it, coming to rest just behind Erik.

"If I had only known...” she started, and brought her hands to rest lightly on Erik's shoulders, causing the younger vampire to shudder. "No, that's not right,” she continued after a second, and began to lightly knead the tense muscles beneath her fingers. “I knew how lonely I'd be. Just like I had been since I pushed you away. But I..." She pressed herself closer to Erik's back, uncurling one leg, then the other, on each side of her Childe. "I guess I have to explain first why I did push you away." The words were more difficult than she had imagined, and before she could manage to pursue, Erik offered his own explanation. “Because after a century and half, you got tired of me?" "No!” Her hands clenched on his shoulders and he tensed under the undoubtedly painful touch until she let go and wrapped her arms around him. “Never,” she continued more quietly, wishing with all that she was for him to believe her. “I never tired of you, I don't think I ever could. But you ... you grew strong, during all this time. As strong as I was, or almost. You were ready to be a Master, ready to have your own lair and clan..." "If you hadn't pushed me away, I'd never have left you,” he interrupted her, and she buried a deep sigh in the crook of his neck. "I know, my Childe. I always knew. And that's exactly why I did push you away. I wanted you to make the decision on your own to become your own Master. I needed you to make that decision, since I knew you wouldn't let me impose it on you." Long seconds of silence followed, and Gabrielle wished she could have seen Erik's face to know what he was thinking. He finally answered her silent question with a whisper. "I was ready to ask to be freed, when the last battle happened. I had told Catarina I would fight one last time for you, and then..." "I know, my Childe,” Gabrielle repeated, her heart breaking both at the anguish in Erik's voice and at hearing him pronounce his lover's name. “The last battle changed everything. For you, but also for me. I lost all my clan save for you, and I tried to cling to you, that night. That's why I asked you to stay ... and you didn't answer.” She took a deep breath, reliving the hurt of that instant. “I don't blame you, I understand. When I needed you, it was too late, you didn't love me anymore, and I didn't feel like I had a right to force you. Not after the way I had treated you." Backing away for an instant, Gabrielle got rid of her tunic, letting it fall on the bed behind her, before pressing her bare chest to Erik's smooth back. "And then,” she continued, her words a caress against Erik's skin, “you were there again, and I thought..." Her arms curled a little tighter around Erik's waist, holding him in place when he suddenly tensed. "You thought what? That I'd forget?"

"No. That you'd forgive." Gabrielle's free hand glided along well-defined abs, slowly enough that Erik could have stopped her, had he wanted to. All the younger vampire did was drop his head back to rest on Gabrielle's shoulder, baring his neck in a silent display of submission. She explored a little lower, still, her fingers playing along Erik's crotch, rubbing the material of his breeches against his growing hard-on. "I looked for you. All this time, I did." Her words were barely louder than a breath; her hand pressed harder, eliciting a quiet moan. Taking her cue, Gabrielle undid the laces of Erik's pants, welcoming the heavy cock into her hand. She closed her fist tight around it and started stroking him, initiating a slow pace, intent on making this rediscovery last as long as it could. "I wish I had never pushed you away,” she breathed. “I wish I had known how to convince you to stay.” And that part was nothing but pure truth. Erik's head shifted against Gabrielle's shoulder even as he began pumping his hips up, fucking himself into her fist. Gabrielle held him tighter against her. She trailed her lips, then her tongue, against the bared neck of her Childe, brushing against scars that had almost, but not quite, faded with age. "I swear,” Erik grunted between two moans, “that if you leave me again, I—" Without waiting for the end of that statement, Gabrielle sank her fangs into Erik's shoulder and took deep pulls on his blood, her hand pumping in the same harsh rhythm until Erik stiffened under her and came all over her hand. She waited until the strong body had gone slack against her, and then pulled back, licking the bloody wounds, whispering against them: "By your blood and mine, I promise I won't." Raising her hand to her mouth, she licked off Erik's spending from her fingers before tearing down into her wrist. She pressed the bleeding flesh to Erik's mouth, and moaned lightly as his mouth latched onto it. The deep pulls he took seemed to set her entire body ablaze; it had been too long, since she had shared blood with a Childe like this. Too long since she had kissed Erik. Too long since they had shared a bed, and their lives. **** Breathing heavily, Gabrielle sat up in her bed, the sheet rolling down to pool at her waist. For a long time, she stared up straight ahead in the empty bedroom, her eyes wide open but seeing nothing, and tried to convince herself that things were better like this. Nothing would change if she went to see Erik. A dream couldn't change anything, not anymore than a few words of explanation or an apology. Too much time had passed for words to heal old wounds. For the next three days and two nights, she repeated the same thing to herself, even when, more than once, she found herself starting to take the road that led to the village where Erik was. She ached to go to him, even if it was only to see him from afar and not talk to him. She didn't know when he would be sent back to relive that terrible battle; she didn't know either what would happen after that. Would a change in the past affect her present? Would the world be different around her, would she even know the difference? The one thing she knew was that she would still lose her clan, and all of her Childer. Even the only one who wouldn't die would remain beyond her reach.

She gave in on the third night. She didn't know yet what she would tell Erik. Maybe she would just wish him good luck, maybe she would tell him everything that had weighed on her heart for so long. But at least she would talk to him one last time before he left. And who knew, he might remember her words, when the past-her asked him again to stay with her. He might remember that, after two hundred years, she had still missed him. Still cared for him more than she could admit out loud. Heeling her horse to a gallop, she went to her Childe, hoping the whole way that she wouldn't be too late. Far in the distance, she could hear thunder rolling, and in her mind the sound was associated forever with that battle she had lost to such tragic consequences. She only urged the horse to go faster. But when she entered the house a villager had indicated to her, it was empty.

Chapter 10 Meghan knew what Gabrielle looked like, the Master who protected her village had provided her with a drawing of her that Erik had confirmed was accurate, but she nonetheless arched an inquisitive eyebrow toward him for confirmation. He merely nodded, and she urged her horse to go a bit faster to catch up with the older vampire. After a moment of hesitation, Erik stayed a little behind. He hadn't expected that they would find his Sire so quickly; he had been leading Meghan to Gabrielle's lair, and had planned, even if he hadn't informed Meghan of his intentions, to leave his travel companion to do the talking and explaining without meeting Gabrielle himself. It seemed that he wouldn't have a choice now, short of turning his horse back and fleeing; he didn't flee in front of demons, he certainly wasn't going to do so in front of Gabrielle. And deep down, he could admit that he wasn't really upset to have come across her like this. He hadn't seen her in months, not since he had left her home after having saved her life and taken care of her. The temptation to return to her, to the only person left from a long gone time, had been very strong, but Erik had resisted it. He had left her territory, traveled, eventually admitting to himself that he had been running away from Gabrielle. Hiding. Better to be alone than to suffer again. And then, he hadn't been alone anymore. He had stumbled upon Meghan a couple of months back. She had pulled out a drawing of him, called him by name, and he had been sure she intended to kill him, like so many others before her. They had fought, he with his fists and feet, she with her magic, and he wasn't sure anymore if he had tried to kill her, or to taunt her into dusting him. He had lost the count of the vampires or humans who had come after him because he had been part of the battle that had changed the world for the worse. She hadn't come to kill him however, and she wouldn't let him change her plans, going as far as to knock him down with a blow to the head so that she could tie him up to make him listen to what she had to say. She had figured out, eventually, that if she wasn't directly in front of him, in his line of sight, her words were lost to him. She had never said anything about it, never asked a question, never shown a hint of pity, but after that she had always made sure he was looking at her when she spoke. He was grateful to her more for the lack of pity than for the care she put in catching his attention. It had only taken him seconds, once he had understood what it was all about, to agree to her proposal. He knew it would only be for a short time, knew that he wouldn't be able to save any of them, not even Catarina, but at least he'd get to see them a last time, talk to them, get a grin, maybe. A touch. A kiss. After decades of loneliness, he had started to forget their faces, their voices. Hers, too. He didn't want

to, couldn't forget them. Not forget and remain sane. To see Gabrielle, now, as she turned to Meghan, was all at once thrilling and frightening, as it had been months earlier. Because Gabrielle was the last link to Erik's past. Because she didn't give a damn that she was. And Erik couldn't let her know that he cared so much about both things. "What do you want?" Straight to business, then. Gabrielle was so caught up in Meghan that she didn't seem to have noticed Erik yet, even though he was only a few feet behind her. What was in her mind, to preoccupy her so? Erik didn't need to see Meghan's lips to know what she was saying. All he needed was to watch Gabrielle's features slowly close in pain, until her eyes and fists were tightly shut. Erik had done the same, at first, had refused to hear it, so he understood Gabrielle's reaction all too well. And this was his cue to intervene. He had told the girl he would help her get Gabrielle's attention. Just her attention, nothing more. So, he pressed his horse up next to Meghan's, and tried to sound as normal as he possibly could when he said: "How ‘bout you listen to what the child has to say before you take a nap?" Gabrielle's eyes shot wide open, instantly looking for Erik. Surprised, obviously, to see her Childe there. But Erik couldn't see anything more than surprise—no pleasure, no annoyance either—before a light blow to his shoulder brought his attention to Meghan. "I'm not a child, old man,” she protested with a lopsided grin. He returned the smile, a retort already forming on his lips. After the initial fighting and tying up stage, he had come to appreciate the young woman's dry humor and realist take on life. She knew she'd never know anything other than this hellish world. She knew that, even if Erik's little trip through time fixed things, she wouldn't benefit from it at all. But she nonetheless played her part in the grand scheme of the world and did her best to help her fellow humans. Movement on the edge of his vision drew Erik's attention back to Gabrielle in time to see her turning her horse and riding away. He frowned at that. He had expected many reactions from Gabrielle, but not this one. His eyes returned to Meghan, and he wondered what she would make of this. She had jokingly suggested that they bring rope with them. Maybe they should have. "...don't care,” she was saying. “You turn the world into hell, you cause the death of almost every single member of your clan and—" Erik interrupted her with a growl. “I warned you. Do not bring them into this." Using that specific guilt wasn't playing fair, he had told her that before, and he was pissed off that she hadn't listened. "And what do you suggest I do?” she shot back. The grin was gone, now, and her eyes were throwing daggers at him. Another thing that amused him in her, her major mood-swings without warning. It reminded him of another woman, long dead that one. "Already told you. Tell her the facts. No need to embellish or make it hurt, there's plenty of that coming anyway."

"She would need to actually listen for me to be able to do that! What am I supposed to do when she refuses..." These few words hit too close to home, and Erik turned his back on her, quite effectively shutting her out. She hated when he did that, and he knew it, but sometimes it was the only option she left him. He understood, all too well, how frustrated she had to be. After all, he had been in her place, trying to talk some sense into his Sire, trying to make her see reason when he was convinced with every fiber of his being that she was wrong, that it was too dangerous to awaken ancient forces that had been dormant for ages and whose behavior was unpredictable. He had suggested that they arm the villages under their protection and teach the humans how to fight the demons that were increasingly aggressive and daring. He had even offered to do the teaching, with three more of Gabrielle's Childer who were receptive to his ideas. But Gabrielle had been completely inflexible, and had refused to even listen to his suggestions. If he had made them before she had chased him out of her bed, he was sure she would have let him do as he pleased, and it made her refusal to listen even more difficult to accept. Had she not demanded his presence on the day of the battle, he might have left the lair with his lover days before it had happened. He disagreed with his Sire too much to continue living under her rule, and he had decided, even though it tore him apart, to ask Gabrielle's blessing in becoming a Master himself. It was tradition for a Sire to symbolically free his or her Childer when they matured enough to have a lair and Childer of their own. While he knew all that, Erik had for a long time been sure that he would remain by his Sire's side forever; she had put an end to his unvoiced dream rather abruptly. Even now, he still didn't know what he could possibly have done to offend her, and it still hurt as much as it had that first night, when he had returned from a fight to discover his Sire had taken someone else to her bed. To what he had thought was their bed. The shock had left him numb, even more so for the fact that he hadn't expected it. Only the previous night, she had been both tender and passionate in his arms, as much as she had ever been. The change had simply been unexplainable. When she had made her first Childe after him, Erik had been worried to lose his place as favored Childe, but when after ten more of them he had still remained her favorite, he had figured out that his place in her bed and at her side was secure. The awakening had been painful, and even Catarina, as delightful as she had been, had never completely healed this wound.

Chapter 11 + Two hundred years earlier Since the night he had awakened a vampire, Erik had fed after his Sire, always waiting for her to be done before he took his own share of the blood offerings. She had never requested it from him, never encouraged or discouraged him either way, but it had simply been one of the many ways he told her each day that she mattered more to him than anything else in the world. Even now, more than a year after she had cast him aside, he continued to show respect to her that way. He doubted she was even aware of it, but it mattered to him to keep on with his decades-old tradition. Every day, villagers came from the almost two dozens villages that had formed a Pact with Gabrielle and her clan. Those coming from the nearest village came by foot; the ones who came from farther away, by horse. They arrived at the lair from the middle of the morning to the middle of the afternoon, and offered

their wrists and blood to whatever vampire wanted it. Only a few mouthfuls, not enough to hurt the human but sufficient to satisfy a vampire's hunger when combined with the demon blood they drank every so often. Fledglings had to be monitored, they often had trouble stopping once they started feeding, but as a whole it was a simple matter, and although accidental deaths were an unfortunate part of the Pact that humans were supposed to accept, no one who had come to bring a blood offering had ever died in Gabrielle's lair. She had always made it clear, to every one of her Childer, that she would not tolerate mishaps. Aside from Erik's personal choice to only feed after his Sire, there was no set rule as to the order in which the members of the clan fed. Whoever was awake when humans first arrived would feed then, and late risers would feed later on. Some of them had preferences, and would feed exclusively from men or women; others, usually the youngest ones, refused to feed from people who had come from the village they had lived in as humans. And then, some vampires developed affinities with particular humans, so that whenever it was that human's turn to give an offering for a village, other vampires would know to leave the human alone. Sexual encounters between vampires and humans were not unheard of, but since villages rotated their gift bearers and few humans came to the lair more often than once every two or three months, affairs were usually brief and quickly forgotten. From where he lounged in an armchair in the common room, Erik was watching Gabrielle. She had come out of her room a few minutes earlier, and examined the handful of waiting humans before making her choice. She was feeding from a young man who couldn't have been more than the fifteen years required for gift bearers; Erik couldn't remember having ever seen the child before. It would be an honor for him to go back to his village and announce that he had been chosen by Mistress Gabrielle herself on his first trip to the lair. Erik wondered if the child would also brag about coming in his breeches at the touch of her mouth. "She's finished,” a soft woman's voice said next to him, startling Erik so that his gaze left Gabrielle as she retreated from the common room to her chambers. “Would you feed from me, now?" Frowning, he looked at the young woman standing by his side; taller than most, she was dressed in finer robes than the usual gift bearers wore. A merchant's daughter, maybe. Her hair was woven in a long braid that she had pulled over her shoulder, and the red ribbon that held it together hung between her full breasts. She looked amused, for some reason, and her smile lit her whole face, putting a sparkle in her brown eyes. Erik remembered Gabrielle looking at him in this exact same way, usually before pulling him into bed. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair, trying to conceal the way his cock was filling with blood at the memory. "You're the only one who ever waits for her to be done before you feed,” the girl continued, now thoughtful. “Why is that?" "I don't know what you are talking about,” Erik grumbled as he sat up, hiding his shock that anyone, let alone a human who was only in the lair a few days a year, would have noticed his personal ritual. "You are a liar,” the girl informed him primly even as she extended her arm to him. "And you are insolent,” he replied coldly. “Show a little respect or you will be sent back without presenting your village's offering." Her smile wavered, and she dropped her gaze to the floor. “I apologize,” she murmured, clearly

chastised. Nodding absently, he motioned for her to sit down on the stool next to the armchair. She settled down and looked up at him again, her eyes almost hopeful when she presented her wrist to him once more. He took it gently in his hand and ran a thumb over the tanned skin. No merchant's daughter would work out in the sun as she clearly did. "Whose dress did your borrow, child?” he asked, wanting to show her that he, too, could notice things. She blushed brightly, but her voice was steady when she answered. "A friend's." Turning her wrist in his hand, he realized that it was clear of scars. It couldn't possibly be her first time offering blood, so she had to be giving him her unmarked arm on purpose. "Why?" Her blush only intensified as she misinterpreted his incomplete question. “Because I thought you might notice me if I looked prettier." She finished in a rush, her voice no louder than a murmur, and Erik stopped himself before he could ask why she wasn't asking him to bite over the marks she already bore; she had just answered his question, if indirectly. He didn't say another word before he gently sank his fangs into her flesh, but he held her eyes as he did so. It had been some time since anyone had shown a real interest in him, and he wanted to enjoy that feeling fully. The girl let out a small gasp as he bit, and she immediately caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He took her blood in long, slow sips, and he could feel her shudder with every one of them. He could have believed it was pain that made her tremble so, but the growing scent of arousal rising from her told another story altogether. Erik usually didn't play with humans like this, and did nothing more than feed from them. But this child had come for more, and it didn't hurt him to oblige. It didn't hurt her either, obviously. Having taken enough of her blood, he started running his tongue over the wounds, closing them slowly. All the while, he kept eye contact with her, and reveled in the effect he had on her. When he finally released her wrist after having placed a small kiss over the tender flesh, she was breathing hard and her cheeks were flushed again. "Thank you, child,” he said formally as was the custom, but she didn't reply as tradition demanded. Instead, she shook her head. "I am no child, Master Erik. And my name is Catarina." Smiling bitterly, he reached for the end of her braid and tugged the ribbon loose. "I am no Master, Catarina. Just Erik. And I think I shall keep this until we next meet." She looked pleased at his words, and he only realized with her grin that he had all but promised to feed from her again the next time she would come. "In seventy three days,” she murmured as she stood and curtsied. “I will be counting."

As he watched her leave, Erik played with the short ribbon in his hand, replaying the whole encounter in his mind. She was an interesting human, full of a fire that was almost familiar to him as it resembled Gabrielle's. It was with some surprise that he realized that he, too, would be counting the days until she returned. It was only after their fourth meeting that he took her to bed; she had been hinting at it since their second encounter. He had been reluctant because he had no interest in satisfying a child's fantasy for an affair with a vampire, but she managed to show him that she saw more than fangs when she looked at him. He grew fond of her, very much so; she had wit, humor, and a bit of a temper that he didn't dislike. But even so, he wouldn't have made her his lover if she hadn't reminded him so much of Gabrielle. He never told her as much, and, after a few more months, his fondness started growing into more than that, until he asked her to move to the closest village so she could be near him. Already, deep down, he was thinking of making her his Childe. Maybe, then, she would completely erase his Sire in his heart. Maybe, then, he would stop hurting so much.

Chapter 12 For a long moment, Erik relived his memories of happier times. Even after all these years, he still thought of Catarina very fondly; he was sure she would have made a beautiful, strong vampire, had she survived the battle. When finally a fleeting touch to his shoulder requested his attention, he gave it back without a second thought. "What do we do, now?” Meghan asked, clearly calmer. He shrugged, gave her a half smile. “Either forget about her completely and trust me to do the job by myself, or give her a little while to calm down and then go to her and try again. But in the end, all you can do is give her a choice. You can't force her hand. The more you push her, the more she'll resist. She was always like that." Meghan looked uncomfortable suddenly, but before he could ask her what was wrong she said: “It's not about not trusting you, you know that, right? It's just so important..." He nodded. “I know. No offense taken. But because it's so important, you can't decide for her, and it's not fair for you to make it hurt." She shook her head, and he knew what she thought, for they had discussed the topic at length on their way to Gabrielle. Meghan was extremely critical of Gabrielle's decision to summon the Primal Forces without consulting other Masters or requesting the help of human warlocks more experienced with strong magic than her Childer had been. Traditionally, vampires stayed away from magic and left its art to humans; it was only one more of the rules Gabrielle had transgressed two centuries earlier. Erik had tried to explain Gabrielle's reasoning, even though he had disagreed with it himself, but he and Meghan had needed in the end to agree to disagree. This time though, judging by the slight shift in her shoulders, Meghan would follow his request and stop arguing. "So, how do I find her?” she asked with a sigh. He took her for a trek around the closest villages to give Gabrielle some time to go home and get a grip on herself. They found a couple of demons to kill, and Meghan looked, clearly caught between fascination and horror, as he fed from them. It wasn't the first time she'd seen him feed, but the act never

seemed to lose her interest. She had offered him her wrist, once; he had looked at the unblemished skin, and declined with a sad smile. He eventually led her to Gabrielle's home in the woods and made Meghan promise that she would give her the facts, only the facts, and accept her answer whatever it would be. "You're not staying with me?” she asked, surprised. "No. I don't think my presence would help." As a matter of fact, he was rather sure that his presence would cause Gabrielle to refuse to listen as she had earlier, but he was in no mood to explain all of it to the human. He hesitated for a second before riding away, though. Something in him couldn't help wishing that maybe... "If she asks where I am,” he said quietly, refusing to meet Meghan's gaze, “tell her where to find me, would you?" He noticed the tight pinch of her lips as she nodded, but she didn't comment. Giving her a nod of thanks, he turned his horse away and rode on, wondering what would happen, what Gabrielle would say in the end. He couldn't help hoping that his Sire would agree. As much as he wanted it, it was going to be difficult to see his clan and Catarina again and not do a thing to save them. Having someone to go through this with him would certainly help. But, as he had told Meghan, they couldn't force Gabrielle to do it. It was her choice. Just like it had been her choice to leave Erik alone in those ruins, her choice, again, to let him leave without a word a few months earlier. Suddenly, the prospect of making that trip in time with a companion seemed very unlikely. **** Gabrielle laughed, a deep, unrestrained laugh that rang straight to Erik's heart like the most melodious music. He had no clue why his Sire was laughing, but did it really matter? Sliding his hands under her tunic, he pulled it up and off Gabrielle's shoulders, and took a second to let his eyes linger on the skin revealed to his gaze. Pale, smooth, but with faded, almost imperceptible scars that bore witness to centuries of fighting. Pushing Gabrielle down on the bed, Erik straddled her thighs and began tracing with his tongue and lips the marks he could find on the quivering body under him. One day, he would ask her to tell him how she had acquired each and every one of these marks during the time they had spent apart. He had missed so much; he wished he could have erased those too-long years. Unconsciously, he began rocking his hardening cock against the apex of Gabrielle's legs, enjoying the friction provided by the double layer of clothing between them, prolonging the anticipation of soon to come flesh to flesh. Gabrielle's hands were on his back, on his ass, rubbing, kneading, sending delightful shivers through him. He couldn't remember the last time he had been touched like this, had felt this much. Too long ago, certainly. Much too long. His rediscovery of the gorgeous body underneath him had led him downward, and as he placed tiny licks along the edge of Gabrielle's breeches he could feel her squirming beneath him. As his Sire, she had always felt uncomfortable being under him in any way, but more often than not he had been able to make

her forget everything but her pleasure. He intended it to be the case this time too. A quick look up, a sugary word—"Please"—and Erik smiled to himself as he divested Gabrielle of what remained of her clothes. To have this strong, powerful woman at his mercy, trembling and pleading with need, was exhilarating, but not as delightful as that first broad swipe of his tongue against her folds. One hand resting on each of her thighs, he delved in deeper, encountering her wetness and humming in pleasure at the rediscovered taste. She was shivering under his touch, arching to urge him closer to her, and he complied easily, thrusting his tongue inside her as he longed to do with his cock, as he would do after he had seen her come for him first. When he had been sired, his amorous skills had been rather rudimentary, he could admit as much, but Gabrielle had taken that particular aspect of his education as seriously as she had all others. And Erik had quickly discovered that very few things were as thrilling as the power he could have on his Sire by taking her to the edge, and keeping her right there, ready and aching to come yet denied that last bit of pressure, that last touch that would bring it all to an end—for a time, at least. Now though, Erik wasn't trying to make things last through delicious torture. Licking, sucking, delicately nibbling on her clitoris, he did his best to make his Sire come, fast and hard. He couldn't wait to taste her again, and he put that desire into each swirl of his tongue, each careful touch of his fingers on Gabrielle's skin. He couldn't wait to make her come, and couldn't wait for everything else that would happen after she did. It had been a long time since they had last been together, but he sincerely hoped that not everything had been lost through these centuries apart. They had both changed, of course, and it would be different, necessarily, but deep down, they were still Gabrielle and Erik, and some things had to have remained the same. At the very least, Erik knew what his own feelings were, knew that he had been too lonely for too long, knew that he craved to have in his life a woman to love and live with. Knew, and had always known, that no one could ever replace Gabrielle in his heart. The question was ... Would she want him? She had chased him away, so long before. Would she want him back? Or was she here, in his bed, in his arms, simply for a moment, simply for the pleasure he could offer her? If anything, the thought increased his desire to pleasure her even more. Sliding a hand off her thigh, he thrust two fingers inside her at the same time as he barely brushed the tip of a fang to her engorged clit. Her body convulsed instantly, and her voice crying out his name was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. His hands shook as he tore at his own clothes, longing to touch her again, feel all of her, be inside her ... His cock slid into her to the hilt with one smooth thrust, and it was all he could do to stop himself from coming right at that instant. Her slick walls were clenching around him, a tight glove that seemed to have been made for him, and there was no other place in the world he would rather have been. Raising his head to look at her, he brushed away a strand of hair that covered her face. "This time, you won't get rid of me,” he informed her as he slowly pulled back and pressed in again. “You'll have to stake me before I leave you." Her legs moved slightly, spreading wider, higher, so that he slid deeper inside her on his next thrust. She

held him there by crossing her ankles behind him. "What if I don't want to get rid of you?” she asked, not quite smiling, not quite apologizing, and Erik answered her with a kiss. **** A hand on his arm shook him awake, startling him out of his dream, and Erik grunted as he sat up. He hadn't meant to fall asleep like this, lying on top of the bed while he was waiting, and even less meant to dream of Gabrielle. Those dreams of reconciliation were always the worst to awake from, for he knew they would never become true; dreams of past times were easier, sometimes. It was a good thing that it was Meghan who had intruded on his sleep, and not his Sire. Meghan was too innocent to even acknowledge the tenting of his breeches he belatedly disguised by crossing his legs in front of him. Gabrielle would have done more than acknowledge it. At least, the Gabrielle he had once known would have. "So child, tell me,” he yawned as he rubbed his still sleepy eyes. “How did it go?" "The bitch said no!” she exploded with an irritated gesture, using a language he had never seen her use. His first instinct was to chastise her for talking about his Sire in such a manner, but she didn't give him time for that. “She doesn't care that you two are our only chance, she's not going to lift a finger. What is wrong with her?" Disappointment threatened to overwhelm Erik, but he pushed it back. He hadn't expected anything from Gabrielle, he reminded himself, so there was nothing to be disappointed about. Nothing. "You're asking me?” he snorted. “How would I know what goes on in her head?" The words felt hypocritical even as they passed his lips, but he refused to even think about that. It was true that he had known Gabrielle better than anyone else ever had. But it had been long before, and too much had changed since then. He didn't know her anymore. Clearly irritated, Meghan sat down on the edge of the bed, facing him, and Erik only paid half a mind to her detailed rendering of how the talk had gone. "I warned you that it was her choice,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing tone when she was done rambling. "But there's so much at stake!” she insisted. He had noticed, the first time they had ever talked, that she was particularly invested in the success of this plan, and her reaction now only confirmed that fact. He sighed. “I know. And so does she. But think of it this way. You're asking her to face her friends, her clan, her Childer, knowing that they're dead, that they're going to die again, and that she can't do a thing about it. It would be less painful to shove a stake through her chest. Less cruel, too." For long seconds, she observed him without a word, and he could tell that she had never thought of it that way before, never realized how hard it would be for them—for him—to return there. "If it's so hard, why will you do it?” she asked at last. He gave her a self-deprecating smile. “Because I'm not Gabrielle."

Chapter 13 They remained in the small village for three more days. Meghan had gotten used to Erik's sleeping patterns as they had traveled together, and she slept during the day too and joined him at nightfall so that they hunted together to repay the villagers’ hospitality. Meghan had sent word back to her own village, and a few members of her magic circle were on their way to join them and help send Erik back in time. Beyond protecting the villagers, hunting allowed Erik to burn up his excess of energy and feed off demons, but none of it truly permeated his consciousness. His mind was too busy for that, running over the same thoughts over and over again. First, there was this little trek to the past. Erik had never been very comfortable to have magic performed on him, few vampires were, but here it was even worse, because it wasn't so clear when exactly he would be sent back in time, whether he would regain his hearing or not, how he would convince the clan, and especially Gabrielle, to change the ritual when nothing he had said had made a difference the first time around, whether he'd die once it was done or go through the same centuries by himself a second time ... So much uncertainty. And then, there was Gabrielle. Erik kept hoping that she would come to see him; Meghan had said she had asked where he was. He kept hoping, also, that she would change her mind, even though he knew better than that. He kept hoping, kept dreaming ... but it was useless to hope or dream, not when Gabrielle had made herself so clear. Useless. And yet, there she was. Coming back from his hunt a couple of hours before dawn, Erik entered his room to find himself face to face with a vampire apparently as surprised as he was. "I was leaving,” Gabrielle blurted out. "You were?” he asked, frowning. “Why did you bother to come, then, if it was to leave before I came back?" "I ... I ... just wanted to wish you good luck." Erik nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off Gabrielle's face for fear of missing something. "Thanks." The silence stretched between them, more difficult to cross than oceans and mountains. Erik eventually moved to the side, leaving Gabrielle free to reach the door if she wanted to. She did not move. "You're not going to try to convince me to come along?” she asked at last. "Convince you?” Erik repeated. “I think you made yourself rather clear. You want to be alone, that's your choice, I—" "I want to be alone?” Gabrielle cut in, her eyes wide in surprise. “Since when?"

Erik gritted his teeth, ancient hurt coming back to the surface. "Since you left without a goodbye?” he snapped. “Since you didn't care to ask me to stay after I saved your fucking life? Since you practically ran—" "Wait a minute! I did ask you to stay. Begged you. Back then I did, and just months ago again. And you wouldn't listen to me. Both times, you refused to listen." The indignation reflected in Gabrielle's eyes was hard not to believe, and Erik felt his own anger flare down. Had she really asked? Had she really wanted it? Had Erik missed these words he had wanted so much to read on Gabrielle's lips? He had tried not to feel sorry for his loss of hearing over the past centuries, all too aware that he ought to be grateful he had lived when so many others had died. But at that instant, his deafness felt like more of a curse than it had ever been. "I'm sorry,” he said, trying to make his voice quiet, trying to hide the pain. “More sorry than I can say. But I think you should go now." The indignation turned into hurt, and Erik couldn't bear to look at Gabrielle any longer. If she had truly asked him to stay, it meant that they could have been together rather than alone for the past few months. Or maybe even longer than that ... she had mentioned she had asked him to stay with her twice ... could she have meant she had asked after than fateful battle? Had those been her last words to him, before she had abandoned him? Despair and unbearable pain at discovering what could have been filled him, and Erik looked away, waiting for Gabrielle to leave so that he could mourn in private a past that had never been. A strong hand closed on his forearm, bringing his attention back to her. "...listening to me?" Wrenching his arm free, Erik scowled at his Sire. No, he wasn't listening. He couldn't listen. Wasn't that the whole problem? Well, fuck that. He wasn't going to explain himself and accept pity, not now, not like that, not when in a few hours he would be gone. He couldn't start anything that might prevent him from making that trip. He had promised he would do his best to give humans a chance, and he had to follow through, even if there was a chance that Gabrielle might still want him. And even more, he had to do it because there was also a chance she might not want him anymore, and he couldn't go through that again. "Go away, Sire. Some of us have a battle to fight tomorrow, and need to rest." With these words, he turned his back to her. When, minutes later, he looked behind him, he was alone again, and he barely managed not to shout at the injustice of it all. **** The house was small, barely more than a hut. Its only window had been covered with a heavy cloth, surely to protect its occupant from the sun. Standing in the middle of the deserted house, Gabrielle didn't know what to think. Was Erik gone for good? Or was he only out for the night? A deep breath revealed that his scent was very strong around her; he had been living here for a few days, and he had left very

recently. Maybe he would return. Maybe all she had to do was wait for him. And maybe it would be better if she did not wait for him. What would she even tell him, if she stayed and he returned? She had prepared this whole speech as she had ridden her horse at break-neck speed in the dark; she couldn't remember anything of it, now. There had been an explanation, somewhere in there, of why she had ever rejected him; of everything that had happened between them, it was the one thing she regretted the most, the one thing she hoped he could understand before she lost him again. But at the same time, she was afraid of his reaction to that revelation. The universe mocked her, as usual, by sending Erik in just as she had finally made up her mind and decided to leave. "I was leaving." She winced at the words that had passed her lips without her consent. Of all things she could have said, this was not particularly helpful if she was to believe Erik's frown. "You were? Why did you bother to come, then, if it was to leave before I came back?" Some things never changed, including Erik's ability to go to the core of a problem in two seconds. "I ... I...” The words she wanted to say simply refused to come out. “...just wanted to wish you good luck,” she finished lamely. Erik stared at her, as though not quite believing her even though he nodded. “Thanks." In the next seconds, she continued battling herself. If only she could manage to talk to him, really talk, rather than these inanities they were exchanging ... But already he was moving to the side, opening her way to the door, and she struggled to find something to say—and stay just a moment longer. "You're not going to try to convince me to come along?" Another frown marred his brow, deeper than before. “Convince you? I think you made yourself rather clear. You want to be alone, that's your choice, I—" "I want to be alone? Since when?" Shock had put a note of hysteria in her words, and she struggled to calm down. How could he possibly say this to her face when not once but twice she had asked him to stay with her? "Since you left without a goodbye?” Erik replied angrily, and her eyes widened a little more. “Since you didn't care to ask me to stay after I saved your fucking life? Since you practically ran—" "Wait a minute!” Once more, she couldn't let him finish when he was sprouting such nonsense. “I did ask you to stay. Begged you. Back then I did, and just months ago again. And you wouldn't listen to me. Both times, you refused to listen." Her voice was breaking on the last words, and that was what stopped her from saying more. That, and Erik's suddenly confused look. Was he truly not remembering? Could the shock of the battle have blocked the memory of her pleading with him? But even if it was the case, it didn't explain why he wouldn't remember her begging him to stay only months before.

"I'm sorry,” he said at last, but his words didn't explain anything. “More sorry than I can say. But I think you should go now." Feeling as though she had just been punched, Gabrielle stared at her Childe, who looked away from her. She simply couldn't understand what was going on. If he truly didn't remember her asking him to stay with her, then it had to mean something was wrong with him, maybe his memory had been affected in some way; blows to the head didn't kill vampires, but they sometimes did strange things to their minds. Had Erik been hurt, maybe? The idea made her want, more than ever, to have him in her life again, to take care of him the same way he had taken care of her. "Listen,” she said quietly, “I don't know what is going on with you, but you need to believe me, Childe. When the world collapsed around us, I wanted nothing more than to keep you by my side. And I asked you ... no, I begged you to stay with me. You didn't reply and I thought that was a pretty clear answer. That's why I left without a goodbye. Because I would have begged you again if I had stayed, and I couldn't, not again. Master vampires don't beg. Sires don't beg, especially not to their Childer. But I did. And I will again, if you will just hear me." His head was still turned away, and he hadn't reacted at all to her speech. Grabbing his arm in exasperation, she practically growled at him. "Are you even listening to me?" Erik was scowling as he pulled his arm free, and Gabrielle let go, surprise taking over anger. Something had wavered over his features at her words, something that she was almost afraid to identify. It was almost as though her words had hit with pinpoint accuracy. As though he had truly not been listening. But he was only two feet from her, he couldn't be that good at ignoring her. He had to have heard her. Didn't he? "Go away, Sire,” was the only answer he offered her. “Some of us have a battle to fight tomorrow, and need to rest." It was a deeply shaken Gabrielle that left Erik, her hand trembling as she closed the door behind her. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. She was beginning to suspect what exactly, bits and pieces starting to make sense as they came together to form a startling picture. A voice too loud and slightly off. Queries that never received answers. Pointed looks toward Gabrielle's face—her lips, she now realized. However, Gabrielle needed more than simple suspicions; she needed to know for sure, needed to know how, and, most importantly, when. She needed to understand. It didn't look like Erik would be willing to answer any question, so that left only one choice for Gabrielle. Finding the girl was easy; all Gabrielle had to do was follow her scent. Its trail was fresh in the air, and she suspected that the child and Erik had been hunting together. The house Gabrielle was led to was just inside the village, whereas Erik's had been just outside of it. Knocking at the door, she immediately heard footsteps inside and knew that she had been right if the girl wasn't asleep at this late hour. The child seemed surprised to see her there, and she hesitated a second before formally inviting Gabrielle inside.

"Changed your mind?” she asked as she stepped in. For an instant, Gabrielle wasn't sure what she meant by that. Had she changed her mind? About what? And then it made sense. Her offer to go back to that deadly day and watch it play again. How could the child even think for an instant that she might want to go through that once more? But then, Erik had agreed to it, hadn't he? She shook her head as her eyes trailed around the room. The herbs and jars on the table seemed ready to be tucked into a large sack resting on the lone chair. The girl was getting ready for the next day, too. Would she be returning to her village after Erik left to wherever he was going? The northeastern territory was far, it would take her some time to get back there. Was there a point in returning there anyway? Gabrielle had given it a lot of thought; if Erik succeeded in his mission, wouldn't everything change through time and space, annihilating this reality to replace it with another one? Gabrielle berated herself at the turn her thoughts were taking. She was simply pushing back the moment when she would know for sure about Erik, and she was all too aware of it. A small but strong hand closing on her arm forced her to return her attention to the girl. She seemed annoyed. "Then why are you here?" Why? Wasn't it obvious? "Erik." The name hung between them; the child's gaze was scalding as she observed Gabrielle, silent, waiting for more. "What happened to him?” Gabrielle insisted. The girl's eyes widened very slightly, her only noticeable reaction. Her voice was perfectly calm when she answered. “What happened to him? I suppose you're talking about his hearing?" At Gabrielle's brief nod, she continued with the same expressionless tone. Her gaze never left her, and she seemed to be weighing the vampire as she spoke. "I never asked. I doubt he would have answered anyway. And I'm surprised you don't know any more than I do. Less, even, it seems." A trace of scorn entered her voice, and Gabrielle's dislike for the girl only grew. She tried to justify herself. “I haven't seen him in months." "Really?” the girl replied with a snort. “Well, it took me all of five minutes to notice when I first talked to him. He's learned to hide it, and he's good at it, but it becomes rather obvious when you're trying to have some kind of conversation with him." Again, her voice was blank of emotions, and somehow it made it worse than if she had been mocking, accusing, sarcastic, just anything other than these quiet blows. More troubled by what she had hinted at

than really said, Gabrielle gave her a small nod and took a few steps to the door. The child knew no more than she did, there was no point in asking anything else. "We're sending him back to the battle tomorrow night,” the girl called just as Gabrielle was opening the door. “We'll be on the Lost Grounds if you change your mind." Gabrielle looked back, and noticed the faint trace of hope in her eyes. She left without answering and returned home.

Chapter 14 + Two hundred years earlier Gabrielle had known from the start that pushing Erik away to incite him to want to become a Master would be painful for her. She wasn't only losing one of her Childer. She was losing the first of them, the one she had always favored above all others. She had never imagined though that to see him with others would hurt quite so much. Over the course of a few months, he shared the bed of almost all of her female Childer. It wasn't unusual in itself, monogamous relationships such as the one they had shared for so long were the exception amongst vampires rather than the norm. And during the same length of time, Gabrielle bedded each of her male Childer except for Erik, keeping each of them at her side a few days at a time. The worse though came more than a year after she had started pushing Erik away. She didn't believe the rumors at first; Erik had never looked twice at the humans who brought blood offerings to the lair. But when one day she witnessed him flirting with a young woman before they disappeared into one of the bedrooms, she couldn't deny anymore that Erik seemed indeed to have taken a human lover. And somehow, this one lover hurt more than all the others combined, because Gabrielle could already imagine the time when sleeping with the girl would not be enough anymore, and Erik would want to turn her and make her his Childe. It was rare for a new Master to take a Childe before forging a Pact with a village, but it wasn't unheard of. She knew how he thought and felt too well not to realize that he would break custom if he cared enough about the girl. He would be truly lost to her, then, and even though it was what she had wanted, the realization upset her beyond words. She went out and hunted alone that night, despite her Childer's protests. She returned instants before dawn, and shrugged away concerned inquiries about her wounds to lock herself in her bedroom, alone for the first time in far more time than she cared to remember. It was the following day, as she tried to distract her mind from thinking about Erik, that, at long last, she finalized the plan she had been thinking about for months. She was sure she had found the way to push back demons to the outer territories for good, possibly even annihilate them, and she couldn't wait to share her idea with all of her clan. At nightfall, rather than sending out her Childer to battle as usual, she asked all of them to gather in the common room and told them of her plan. "Demons will not stop coming,” she started, immediately catching everybody's attention. “They have been walking in deeper and deeper into our territories for years, and they will continue to do so until we either kill every single of them, or they conquer us. I have had word from three other Masters who have lost several villages to the onslaught of demons; they all wanted me to send some of you to fight for them,

but I couldn't. As it is, we are barely holding on to our territory. Losing fighters for more than a night would put us at a disadvantage." There were murmurs around the room, and Gabrielle smiled indulgently at a couple of her Childer who seemed caught between smugness and fear. "I know some of you thought I was blind for not recognizing the danger that menaces us,” she continued, a little quieter now. “Believe me, I am not blind, nor deaf. Just because you do not hear me share my concerns or ideas does not mean I am not thinking." A few heads bowed in silent apology, and Gabrielle nodded her forgiveness. She was about to go on and explain what she wanted her clan to do, but a timid voice rose from behind her. "But why don't these Masters turn more humans to have a larger army?” Diana asked. "For the same reason we don't,” Erik replied before Gabrielle could say a word. “It takes months in the best of conditions to train a fledgling to fight. In the meantime, they are more of a liability than an asset. And they still have to feed, which means that villages have to send more offerings. With the growing tension and humans becoming so scared of demons, they might not agree to—" "If you are finished, Erik, maybe you will allow me to move on before the night ends?" Erik reacted to Gabrielle's interruption with a jerk of his head, as though she had slapped him. She understood why; she had never talked to him in such an abrupt and condescending manner. She wasn't sure why she even had. For a moment, as he spoke, the image of that human girl had flashed in Gabrielle's mind, and her anger had been too violent to contain. He stared at her for long seconds, clearly not understanding what he had done wrong, but as always he refused to ask for an explanation. When he finally bowed his head stiffly under her cold stare, she refused to acknowledge him and immediately started talking again. "While some of you thought I was letting time run away from us in the demons’ favor, I was in fact elaborating a plan. And today I am ready to share it with you." She paused for emphasis, and delivered her news with her strongest voice. “We will awaken the Primal Forces and enroll their help in fighting demons." She had expected the roar of incredulity, outrage and fear that followed, and so she didn't let it affect her. Arms crossed and chin held high, she let her gaze run over her Childer; almost all of them were agitated to various degrees. The only one of them who remained calm and quiet was Erik, his frown as he observed her the sole clue that he had heard her astonishing declaration. Eventually, the shouts and protests died out, and in the renewed silence Gabrielle explained her entire plan. The scent of fear still permeated the room, but as she talked, she could see incredulity being replaced by hope, and even enthusiasm on many faces. "We will awaken the Primal Forces,” she repeated. “We will use magic to reach them and harness their power, and use them to free our territory from demons. We will create a trap, pretend to leave a passage unprotected to the very heart of the closest village, and when demons come to us, we will unleash the Primal Forces upon them. All we will have to do is direct their action, and kill whatever demons escape them. Demons will fear our clan so much that they will leave our villages alone. Soon, we can show other

clans how to fight using the Primal Forces, and our clan shall be known as the one who freed the world from demons." By the time she had finished, she knew most of her Childer would follow her lead without raising any more objections. She knew, also, who would fight her about it. It was only days before she was proved right, and Erik first approached her with an alternate plan. She listened to him, but even before he was finished she knew what her answer would be. His request to go and train humans to fight sounded too much like a way to be closer to his human lover. If that was what he wanted, he would need to say so out right; Gabrielle refused to help him. For the next few weeks, the whole clan prepared for the summoning of the Primal Forces. A few of Gabrielle's Childer dedicated themselves to researching the magic that would free the powerful entities and assure their cooperation, while everybody else trained harder than ever before. During the same time, demons continued attacking always farther into Gabrielle's territory, making it clearer than ever that some extraordinary action was needed to stop them. The whole time, Erik made his lack of enthusiasm perfectly clear, and more often than not he would try to persuade Gabrielle, or others, that her idea was too dangerous. Exasperated, she finally put an end to it with a direct order. "I do not want to hear another word about it, Childe. You will follow your Sire's orders, and fight this battle with your clan. I will not tolerate any more of your defiant talk. It is more than time you learned your place." She had expected him to submit to her words, if reluctantly, and he did. What she had not expected was the rebellious flame in his eyes, or his quiet words. "I will do as my Sire desires. But when the battle is done, if you and I are still alive, we shall have to talk." Even though he said no more, Gabrielle understood what he meant, and she stared unseeingly at his back as he walked away. He was still her Childe, but not for long; soon, he would be a Master. She didn't know whether to be proud or mourn.

Chapter 15 Gabrielle had hoped that the ride home would have helped her clear up her mind, but she soon realized that the approaching sunrise was putting her too much on edge for that. Forced to press her mount to go faster when it was already tired, she encouraged the animal with quiet words until they had reached the clearing in the forest where her home stood. As always, she brushed, fed and watered her mount before retreating inside her lair, all of it automatic actions that required no thinking on her part. She tried to calm her thoughts by lighting a fire and putting water to warm. She had no tub to take a bath, but warm water to wash would be a nice change. It soothed her mind, and when she slipped into bed she was calmer at last. She allowed her thoughts to return to Erik and to the questions that so desperately needed answers. As she lay on her bed, her gaze set unseeingly on the frame of light growing on the edge of her heavy curtains, the events of a few months earlier replayed in her mind. How could she not have seen it? How could she not have noticed that something was wrong with her Childe? She had known him for centuries, better than she had ever known anyone else, how had she not added up the clues?

She had called out Erik's name, several times, and never gotten an answer. They had talked a little, but no real conversation, no more than a few words at a time, when it used to be so hard to get him to be quiet. Then, there had been those pleading words that Erik did not remember; that, she now knew, he had not heard. In her mind, Gabrielle could still see that hand hesitating on the door handle, the small headshake that had followed her begging. What had been going through Erik's mind, then, if it hadn't been her words? What had made him hesitate? What inner voices had he dismissed before finally leaving? Would he have stayed if he had known how deeply Gabrielle wanted—needed—him? Could her words even have made a difference at that point? So much time had passed; wasn't any word she could say to him too little, too late? She wanted to think that it wasn't. She needed to believe it. But in the end, she didn't know. The question tortured Gabrielle for hours, and even as she fell asleep, it haunted her still in her dreams. **** "Can you stand?” Erik asked blankly, and watched without moving when Gabrielle tried and succeeded. "Good. I've got places to be. Can't stay here and baby-sit when you can take care of yourself." Erik's eyes remained on her lips, waiting, Gabrielle knew, for her to say something. Waiting for her to give him a reason to stay. But she didn't know where to start, how to explain things that still hurt so much. Time had passed, but it had not made anything any easier, quite the contrary. When no words came, Erik nodded. “Right then. I'd better be going." And as she watched her Childe turn around and walk out of the bedroom, Gabrielle realized that this was it. The moment of truth. And, at the same time, a second chance. They had parted after a misunderstanding that had wounded them both, but she could try to repair everything now. She had to try. If she let Erik go, it was unlikely she'd ever see him again, ever have the chance to make amends, ever find a companion. Naked but for the bandage that bound her arm, she stood from the bed and she followed him out of the bedroom, stumbling but walking farther even when her legs threatened to give in. Erik was just reaching the door when Gabrielle's hand brushed his arm, and she was relieved when long, strong fingers hesitated on the door handle. Erik turned sideways, enough to look at Gabrielle, but his hand remained on the handle, still ready to leave. It had never been clearer to her how much she had hurt him than it was at that instant. His whole body was a mix of hope and wariness. But as long as he still hoped, so could she. "Please, don't,” Gabrielle murmured, raising a hand to brush the back of her fingers to his cheek. “I can't live like this anymore. Can't live alone. Can't go on night after night knowing that you're somewhere out there as lonely as me. Knowing I left you to fight alone when we could have fought together, side by side again." Gold flashed through proud eyes, and Erik's chin came up with this arrogance that was his only. "Who said I was lonely?” he challenged. “I'm perfectly fine. I don't need you. I don't need anyone." As much as she wanted to call them a lie, Gabrielle accepted the claims. She was the one who had tried

to put an end to her existence. She was the one who couldn't go on like this. For all she knew, he was truly happy to be on his own. But if he were, that flame of hope in his eyes would not be burning brighter suddenly. "I do,” she admitted, her voice broken. “I need you. Please. Stay with me." Erik took a sharp breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the hope had disappeared and a new fire had settled in the blue-gray, an old fire that Gabrielle hadn't seen in what felt like forever. Then Erik's mouth was on hers, and she wanted to laugh and cry in the same breath. Her knees finally gave out, but before she could collapse to the floor, a strong but slightly shaky arm caught her around the waist. As he held her to him, Erik was careful not to press too hard against her still healing ribs. Even though his hands at her waist and at the small of her back were completely innocent, she felt more in that soft touch than she had earlier when he had checked her wounds, and she shivered, pressing herself just a little closer to him. "Maybe I should stay a bit longer,” Erik murmured, a corner of his mouth twitching up. “Just make sure you'll be all right. You seem a tad weak, still." Gabrielle nodded, her throat refusing to let words pass, and she clung to Erik as he gently picked her up and brought her back to her room. Her hands were trembling as she tugged and pulled at his clothes. He took pity on her and helped, finishing to undress, and soon they were on the bed, callused yet soft hands rediscovering naked flesh. Gabrielle was still hurt, still fragile, in no way ready for anything more, but after so many years of loneliness, this felt like heaven. Erik's hands caressing her as she had longed them to. Her own hands on him, finding so many faded scars that she wished she had been there to heal with a kiss. Mouths fumbling, relearning each other. Smooth skin under her fingers. Hard flesh that pulsed in her hands. Wetness under his fingers. And then fangs. Shared blood. Twin moans. Coming together. And lying against the strong body of her Childe, with the hope of never being alone again. He had closed his eyes, and she wasn't sure whether he was asleep or just resting. She was exhausted herself. The effort of walking had taken a toll on her body, while the strong emotions she had experienced in the past hour had left her mind worn out. Even so, she refused to close her eyes and let sleep claim her. She didn't dare to. She was almost afraid that, if she did, she would awaken to find out that it had all been a dream. It had happened quite often in the past. She had allowed herself to dream her Childe would come back to her, only to be disappointed to the point of tears by the time she woke alone. She kept her eyes on his face, detailing his relaxed features, refreshing her memory and relearning each trait of his face. She ached to bring her hand from where it rested against his chest to his face, to caress his chest, his lips, his eyelashes... "Sleep, Sire,” he murmured, startling her. “I shall be here when you wake. You'll stare all you want then." She started talking, but remembered she needed to have his attention first. Cupping his cheek, she ran her thumb lightly over it until his eyes opened. "You will be here when I wake,” she repeated, “but what about tomorrow? What about the day after that? What about..."

He silenced her by placing his index finger across her lips. "You worry too much, my love,” he murmured, and held her just a little tighter against him. Gabrielle fell asleep within moments, her fears forgotten. **** Variations of the same dream played through Gabrielle's mind as she fitfully slept through the morning and early afternoon. Things could have been so different if she had only noticed earlier what had been going on with her Childe. She could have truly talked to him, then, rather than have her words be lost to him. When she finally woke, it was worse, because the images kept running over and over in her mind, until she wasn't sure anymore what was reality and what was only wishful dreaming. The one thing she knew for sure was that Erik wasn't with her, and it had never hurt as much as it did at that moment. By the time night came, she had made her decision. And changed her mind a dozen times. But as the sun sank toward the horizon, there was no doubt left in her mind. If this was her last chance, then she needed to see Erik. Apologize, if the younger vampire would let her. Talk to him. Explain. And after that ... Who knew what would happen? As she rode too fast toward what remained of the village she had once called hers, she tried to find the words to start, decide what she would say, imagine how Erik would answer. Only the previous night, she had been riding to him with the same kind of thoughts. But now, it was different. Now she knew why he hadn't answered her before, and she knew how to make sure that, this time, he actually heard her message, if not her words. She would have to be careful, though. Her biggest mistake would be to make Erik believe she was acting out of pity—it wasn't the case, and it was a sure way to anger her Childe to make him believe it was. So, she wouldn't mention his hearing problem. She would keep it simple. As simple as things could be between the two of them. Why had it ever become so complicated anyway? Erik had been the best Childe she could ever have dreamed to sire. Decades of teaching him the hunt and the subtleties of clan politics had passed in a blink; decades of sharing the same bed, of coming together every day, of love even if they never pronounced that word. Things could have continued as simply, as beautifully, if only Gabrielle hadn't realized her Childe had grown into his power. She could only wonder, now, what would have happened if she hadn't pushed him away. Tradition demanded that a Childe leave his clan when becoming strong enough to have his own lair, but Childer who stayed with their Sires long after they had reached a Master level themselves were not completely unheard of. Maybe if she had talked to him about it, she wouldn't have needed to regret her actions, or to watch Erik learn to hate her. No, things would never be simple again between them. But maybe they could be better. Just maybe. It was hours before she reached the point where the road ended with a broken stone bridge. Horses were tied to nearby trees, and as she tried to urge her own mount forward and it refused to enter the shallow water, she understood why. She quickly slipped down and patted it gently before leaving it behind her without tying its rein. She had lost her last horse by attaching it to a tree while she had been scouting an area for a demon camp she knew had to be near; she had returned to find her animal slaughtered, and promised herself not to make the same mistake again. She would rather lose a horse because it had wandered off than prevent it from being able to flee in front of danger. The stones were slippery, but she managed to cross the river without having to walk in the water. As

soon as she was on the other side, she started running, letting long gone memories guide her steps. She had never come back since the night after the battle; she had never been able to. But now she had a reason, and that reason made the ache in her heart and the guilt bearable if not any less. The village—the battlefield—was as she remembered it. Two hundred years had not changed much the chaos left after the battle. Ruins. Scorched bits of building. All of it still echoing in her mind with shouts and cries, the sounds of a world coming apart at the seams as doomed humans and vampires had fought side by side for their lives. For Gabrielle. She could almost see some of the villagers fleeing, warned—but too late—that the village was going to come under attack, that they had to evacuate. Many had been saved, but many more had died, by the hands of demons or the power of the Primal Forces. If her plan had worked, not a single one of them would have been hurt, and the demons would have been exterminated before ever reaching the village. But her plan had failed, and the people she had been supposed to protect had died. They had been humans—fragile, and mortal. Despite the centuries that had passed, there wasn't a spot of green anywhere, no grass or wild flowers. The land was dead. Barren. And it was fitting. Too many had died here for life to ever prevail again. The Primal Forces had killed more than humans and vampires, Gabrielle now realized. A few times, she stumbled, the lightning that streaked the sky every few seconds not strong enough to allow her to see where she was setting foot. The lightning never seemed to strike the ground, and the roar of thunder was practically continuous by now; all of it reminded her more and more of the battle. The lightning and thunder had started at the instant they had begun invoking the Primal Forces, and they had still been going on when she had left the following night. She had heard, from rumors encountered over the centuries, that the storm never ceased over the Lost Grounds. She had always thought it was only a myth; now, she understood that it was more than that. The new realization was chilling her down to her bones, but she kept running, following the pull deep inside her that told her which way to go. When she saw them in the distance, and realized where they were, she almost wanted to laugh. Of course. It had to be there. On the same grounds where her lair had once stood. She could distinguish five silhouettes as she came closer, slowing down as she tried to calm her thoughts. There was suddenly a flash of light, blinding and oh so brief, only different from the lightning that still flashed in the sky by its bright blue color. When Gabrielle's vision cleared four silhouettes only remained standing. Walking now, she continued to approach, still hoping beyond reason. She recognized the girl first when she turned toward her. The other three wore the long white and crimson robes characteristic of human warlocks. She was too late. She had lost Erik. Again.

Chapter 16

Erik hated speaking the language of magic. He knew very little of it; he had never been much interested in magic as a human, and his interest had been only minimal as a vampire, usually restricted to how to avoid it. But now, as he had to remember five words—five ridiculous little words—he could only despise the whole thing. Why couldn't they simply have cancelled the whole spell? A light touch to his arm brought his attention to Meghan. She gestured to the piece of heavy parchment he had been clutching since they had left the village. The light of the moon was barely enough for him to distinguish the letters. The image, in his mind, of Gabrielle teaching him how to read was much clearer. "Got it memorized yet?” Meghan asked. He nodded. In truth, he had learned the words days before. But as his horse brought him closer and closer to the remains of what had once been his village, he could feel himself becoming increasingly on edge. It wouldn't do at all to travel that far only to forget the five little words that could make all the difference. "We have to leave the horses here and continue by foot,” she announced just as they reached the river and its broken bridge. Their horses and those of the three other humans who had joined them were getting nervous and started refusing to advance, as though sensing what had gone on decades earlier. Getting off their mounts, they tied them to nearby trees and crossed the river by foot. Erik cast a last glance of goodbye to his horse as he waited for the humans to cross, their movements slowed down by the cumbersome robes they wore. Somehow, it was only now sinking in that he wouldn't be back to this world. They had left a little after sunset, something about the stars needing to be in a certain alignment. It was full night, now, and Erik was somewhat thankful for the nearly complete darkness, broken only by lightning streaking the sky. He would see enough of the battlefield as it was; he had no desire to see more than he absolutely had to. Therefore, he kept his eyes on the ground as they passed through the destroyed village. Even so, the dead were there, silent as the rest of the world was to him, but swirling around him, making their presence known with ghostly touches, and he unconsciously drew his cloak closer around him in an illusion of warmth. They had told him in what location they would do the spell, but he still felt a shiver run down his spine as they finally reached the ruins of what had been his clan's lair. His home. Somehow, the memories were stronger, here, demanding his attention with a harshness he couldn't ignore. Memories of helping to build the lair with the men of his village, before they had even known Gabrielle would make a Pact with them. Memories of leading her to it, the night when they had first met; she had climbed down from her horse almost as soon as they had left the village, and had walked next to him the whole way, asking questions and answering his own. Memories of waking up next to her the following night, craving blood and being offered hers. Memories of learning how to fight, how to feed, how to love. Memories of the lair being expanded even as the clan grew. Memories of finding himself in front of a closed door, one morning, and of being too proud, too hurt to open it. Memories of waiting for three days for his Sire to come back to him, in vain. He followed the directions of the oldest woman in the group and stood in the center of the square formed by the four humans. Meghan surprised him when she moved forward and pressed a quick peck to his cheek. He caught the ‘good luck’ on her lips before she stepped back, and he managed to give her

a half smile. The humans started talking, their mouths moving in silent unison. Each of them held herbs that they threw at his feet at regular intervals. The scent of them was tickling his nose and he tried to ignore the ritual, focusing instead on the storm that was tearing up the sky. It was, at the same time, a grandiose sight, and a terrible reminder of the battle Erik was going back to fight. A few minutes and that would be it. He would have a little time to enjoy the presence of people who knew him, cared about him; just long enough to give them a proper goodbye. Then it would be over again. As the flash of blue light enveloped him, his only regret was that Gabrielle had not changed her mind.

Chapter 17 + Two hundred years earlier All day long, Erik paced through the lair, angry, worried, and more determined than ever. The following night, Gabrielle would put her insane plan in motion, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, or her. She had ordered him to stop fighting her, and rebelling now would be close to suicide. He didn't know if Gabrielle cared so little about him now that she could have staked him if he disobeyed her, but he certainly didn't plan to find out. There were other ways to rebel, however. Ways that might not be as deadly as an outright confrontation. He intended to ask Gabrielle to free him after the battle, and tradition demanded that he wait to be a Master before siring a Childe, but he had decided not to wait. Despite Gabrielle's reassurances that the demons would never reach the village she was using as bait, Erik couldn't shake off his worry. If demons did manage to approach the village, he refused to leave Catarina without defenses in front of them. And the best way he knew how to protect her was to make her a vampire; give her strength, and as near immortality as she could have. When night fell at last, he was out of the lair before Gabrielle could give out instructions; he had been doing that a lot, in recent months, and taken to hunting on his own. He had briefly seen Catarina the previous night, and told her he would come to her by nightfall and to wait for him in her small house. She didn't know what plans he had for her, but he knew she would understand; and he hoped, with all that he was, that she would accept. Humans had a right to refuse to be turned, even if very few chose to exert it. He wasn't sure he would obey her wishes if she did not want him to sire her. Catarina was smiling when she opened her door to him, and immediately she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. The knot in his chest loosened a little; maybe he had worried too much. "Are you taking me out to hunt tonight?” she asked eagerly when he broke off the kiss. He had been teaching her how to fight with a short sword for a few weeks, promising her that she would soon have the occasion to try her new skills while silently hoping she wouldn't need to. "Not tonight,” he said with a weak smile as he drew her to the bed and made her sit next to him. “I need to talk to you." Her smile slowly vanished as he explained what would go on this night, Gabrielle's Childer retreating in front of demons to make them believe the way was easy to the core of her territory; provided that they acted as they always did, the demons would push further in the following night, and Gabrielle would then fight them with the Primal Forces’ help, if everything went as she had planned.

"If everything goes as she planned?” Catarina repeated, frowning. “What do you mean, if? Surely Mistress Gabrielle wouldn't risk this if she wasn't sure she would succeed." A bitter smile twisted Erik's lips; had he ever been so naïve, as a human? Had he ever believed so completely in the vampires’ ability to protect the villages with which they made Pacts? Of course he had, he admitted to himself after a short moment. And, deep down, he still did even now. "Gabrielle is sure of herself,” he answered her question. “But I ... I always worry too much, I suppose. That's why I taught you how to fight, so you could defend yourself if the demons reach the village. And that's why I want to sire you tonight." She laughed at that, a clear, innocent laugh that said all too clearly she thought he was joking. But as he kept looking at her, she slowly calmed down, and understood. "You ... you really mean that?” she asked, eyes wide with shock. "I really do." "But ... but you're not a Master ... you can't ... can you?" There was fear in her voice, beyond the shock. But there was also, Erik was sure of it, the hints of hope and excitement he had been wishing for. "I can,” he assured her, squeezing her hand gently. “If you want me to." She answered the best way he could have hoped for, by leaning toward him and pressing her lips to his before pulling back shyly. "Will it hurt?” she asked then, slightly apprehensive. "A little at first,” he conceded, thinking back on his own siring. “But not for long. And then it will feel good, too." She considered his words for a moment, and then asked, a hint of shyness tinting her words: “Will you be there when I wake up?" He had to think about that for a few seconds; she wouldn't be rising until the next sundown, which meant that he would need to stay with her the whole time to be there when she woke. He might get in trouble with Gabrielle for not having come back to the lair for a full day right before the battle; then again, she might not even notice. "I'll be there,” he promised. “I'll always be there for you, my Childe." She smiled at that, and nodded once, giving him the permission he had asked for. Cupping her cheek in his hand, he drew her to him and kissed her cheek, her jaw, her chin before finally coming to her mouth. He caressed her lips with the tip of his tongue before sliding in to meet hers. He could tell how tense she was despite having agreed to be his Childe, and he tried to soothe her and make her forget her fear. She soon melted into his kiss and relaxed against him when he pulled her down on the bed next to him. She reached for the laces of his breeches but he took her hand away and held it in his, their fingers woven

together. As much as he wanted her, he was too nervous to exchange more than kisses with her before he turned her. His first Childe ... the moment was special; he wondered if Gabrielle had felt the same way, when she had sired him. He froze at that sudden thought and pulled back a little, unwilling to have his Sire intrude on a moment that was his and Catarina's only. Catarina misinterpreted his movement, and tilted her head to the side, baring her neck to him. She was trembling, he noticed; he remembered he had trembled too. Leaning down to her neck, he caressed the curve with his lips, practically feeling her blood run so close beneath her skin. Having chosen his spot, he kissed it gently, and then bit down. Catarina cried out, in pain he was sure, but her arms tightened around him rather than push him away. He took long, deep pulls on her blood, feeling her heartbeat, so fast at first, slowly lose its force as he drained her. "They need to have a little life left in them when you give them your blood,” Gabrielle's voice echoed in his mind, and he reluctantly stopped sucking. He had never taken so much at one given time from a human, and the feeling was glorious. Catarina blinked, oh so slowly, when he sat up and tore into his own wrist. He held the back of her head as she drank a precious few mouthfuls, some of his blood spilling down the corner of her mouth. He cleaned the spill with a kiss after pulling back his wrist; her heart was so weak, it wouldn't be long, now. "Will you love me as much as you love her, when I am your Childe?" Catarina's words were almost inaudible, but as close to her as he was, Erik heard each of them. He stared in shock at her now closed eyes, wondering not how she knew, because she had proved to him, long before, how observant she could be, but rather why she had never mentioned before knowing that he still loved Gabrielle. Lying down next to her, he buried his face into the crook of her neck and held her close, taking in the heat that was slowly leaving her body. And for the first time—and the last one, he promised himself—he allowed himself to cry over the loss of his Sire.

Chapter 18 One second, Erik stood in the ruins of his destroyed lair. The next, he was lying down in a bed, a body pressed against his, disoriented and slightly nauseous. Slowly, his vision cleared and focused on the woman in his arms. All at once, he wanted to laugh and sob. He had never imagined that he would come back to his Childe's bed. She was still sleeping, and he caressed her face with a light finger, rediscovering her features after having come so close to forgetting them. Her eyelids fluttered under his touch, and he watched her open her eyes and look at him, a single word passing her lips. "Sire?" He couldn't suppress a quiet, delighted laugh at that, the first word he had heard in close to two centuries.

"Yes, Childe. Drink." His own voice sounded strange to his own ears, and he briefly wondered if he would have time to get used to it again before he lost his hearing once more. Chasing the thought away, he offered his neck to Catarina, and she bit without hesitation. In the past he remembered, he had offered her his wrist. But he knew that in a few hours she would die, and it wouldn't change anything for him to offer her such a close connection at least once in her vampire existence. "I've missed you,” he murmured when she drew back, and offered her a small smile. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "You've missed me?” she repeated. “Was I gone for that long?" Swallowing the lump in his throat, he held her closer to him and tried to keep smiling, to keep playing the act. “It felt like centuries." She kissed his neck right over the bite mark she had created, and Erik shivered. It was a ghost he was talking to, a ghost he was touching; he had to remember that. Nothing he could do would change it. Nothing he could do would save her, or any of the others. "I've got to go,” he mumbled, steeling his mind and body as he pushed away from her and stood. “Gabrielle called for an assembly right after sunset tonight, I'm probably late already." Sitting up, Catarina looked at him levelly, and he had the clear impression that she could see right through him, to what he wasn't saying, what he couldn't say. "I can't come, can I?” she asked coolly, and he shook his head. "Not now. She'll be mad at me when she realizes I sired a Childe. Better not to antagonize her before the battle." "I want to fight, though,” Catarina said after an instant. “Will you let me fight tonight?" Everything that Erik was, everything that he knew wanted to say no; but he knew that, in the end, nothing he did would change her fate. The Primal Forces would reach out and kill vampires all over the world. It didn't matter whether Catarina fought in the open or remained hidden; she would die before sunrise. "I will come for you as soon as I can,” he promised, and, giving her a last kiss, he walked out of her house and hurried back toward the lair. Toward more ghosts. More pain. Like a chant, he started whispering the five magic words, focusing on them and only them, as he slipped into the common room and took his place within the semi circle that was waiting for Gabrielle. Another of Gabrielle's oldest Childer, Sondra, standing across from him, threw him a questioning look and broke his focus. He could see her, here and now, head slightly tilted, the merest frown marring her features; yet he could see her as she would be in a few hours, her blood so dark it seemed black covering half her face from the crack in her skull, eyes open and unseeing. He couldn't help it then. He closed his eyes tight, shutting all of them, all of it out. Gabrielle's youngest Childe at his side and his worried inquiry whether everything was alright, the sudden quiet that fell on the

room as all the members of the clan noticed that something was happening, and the hand closing on his shoulder and squeezing gradually until the pressure became pain. Physical pain, he could deal with; that, he could fight, unlike the hurt of seeing all these people who didn't know they would soon be dead. He tried to shrug the hand off, opening his eyes again when it did not let go. "Are you all right?” Gabrielle asked, her hold finally relenting. Standing in front of him, she was giving him a serious look, with none of her usual anger. Not all soon to be dead, and Erik clung to that idea. Not everyone here would die. Not everyone. He would still be alone in the end, but he would at least have fresh memories to sustain him. "I'm fine,” he lied. “Let's get on with it. The night isn't getting any younger." She threw him a strange glance, but didn't comment further before taking a few steps back and facing her Childer. Everybody already knew their role, but she nonetheless reviewed the plan, where each of them would be, and as names were called, Erik's gaze was drawn to familiar faces he had come close to forgetting. He tried to etch each of them in his mind; he would need their company in the next few hundred years, and memories were the best he would have. Eventually, his eyes returned to Gabrielle. She directed the meeting with her usual calm and strength, and even if he knew, oh so well, how wrong she was, he couldn't help admiring her confidence before the battle. Her awakening would be rude. Was it because of the shock that, in a few hours, she would fuck him senseless before leaving him to his solitude for a few decades? "Well, if everybody knows their role, time to get ready." Her Childer started flowing out of the room at Gabrielle's words, but Erik didn't move. "I need a word with the magic group,” he stated, his voice as cold and dead as he felt inside. There was some hesitation and seven of his fellow Childer remained behind. Being the oldest meant that they usually listened to what he had to say, even if they did whatever it was that Gabrielle wanted in the end. Gabrielle watched him, arms crossed and face inscrutable, but she didn't say a word. Finding a piece of parchment and ink, he scribbled down the five words he had learned so well before giving the note to Aurora, who was going to lead the magic ritual. "You need to add that to your incantation. Right at the end." Eyebrows rose as the note passed from hand to hand, until it was finally in Gabrielle's hands, who still hadn't said a word. By pure habit, Erik turned to watch Aurora's lips move. "Since when do you know anything about magic?” she asked, and Erik forgave her slightly snappish tone on account of the too many hours she had spent working on the spell they would use. "I know what I know,” Erik said calmly, meeting her eyes. “And I know that if you don't add these

words to your spell, it won't work." "And how do you know that, exactly?” Sondra asked, sounding puzzled but not entirely skeptical. "I just do,” he sighed. “Trust me." Only silence answered his words. Of course. Why would they believe him? He had claimed for weeks that this was the worse idea Gabrielle had ever had; he had even tried to talk a few of them into outright rebellion. "Is it likely to mess up the spell in any way?” Gabrielle asked when after a minute or so no one had replied. A few glances were exchanged, heads shaken, until the magically inclined Childer reached a unanimous conclusion. "It's very doubtful it will affect the ritual in any way, good or bad,” Aurora finally commented, taking the parchment from their Sire. “And after spending weeks on that incantation, I'm quite sure—" "Your ritual will fail,” Erik interrupted her. "And again, how do you know that?” she sneered. “Have you suddenly become a seer and didn't tell us?" An acid comment was on the tip of Erik's tongue, diplomacy be damned, but he didn't have time to voice it. "So, these extra words won't hurt the spell?” Gabrielle asked; her voice was too quiet, Erik thought, when so much was at stake. "They won't,” Aurora acquiesced, calmer now. “But they won't help either." "Humor me, then, would you? If it will stop Erik from being such a pain, it has to be worth it." There were barely suppressed laughs around the room, and Erik wasn't sure whether to scowl at Gabrielle or thank her for this ambiguous support; in doubt, he threw her an annoyed glare. He couldn't help but notice the affection reflected in his Sire's eyes as she observed Aurora and the other Childer. "Yes, Sire,” Aurora responded at last with a light bow. As they all left the room to get ready, Erik remained where he was, staring blankly at the empty room. Trapped in his most familiar nightmare, he could not escape. He had known it would be hard to see them all like this, but he had not realized how hard. He had not imagined either that it might be too hard for him to bear. "Come on, Childe,” Gabrielle's voice said from behind him, startling him. Caught in his own mind, he hadn't realized someone else was still in the room. He turned to look at her, but already she was walking away, throwing above her shoulder: “It'll be over soon." Repressing a bitter laugh at the idea that her words were far truer than she even knew, he went to collect his sword, then went to Catarina. He gave her a few instructions, and tried to stay close to her once the

battle started, but, just like the first time, they were separated. And so, he fought. He had an eerie feeling that he was repeating the same gestures, the same blows, shouting the same encouragements as he had the first time. He cried out when the first of them fell from a demon's blow, but no more than he had back then. No less either, even though he had known it would happen. Then a screeching, mind-blowing noise seemed to rip the air, and his hearing disappeared with agonizing pain. The Primal Forces had just been freed. He was almost relieved not to be able to hear the moans of agony and despaired cries as vampires and demons were slaughtered all around him. Vision blurred by tears and blood, he simply kept fighting, hoping beyond hope that someone, something would change the course of history and put an end to his existence. Morning came and found him sobbing over Catarina's scorched body. The battle had been lost again, and the price, to him, was the same as it had been the first time around. Strong hands gripped his arms, helping him up, and Erik found himself looking into the dead eyes of Gabrielle. A flash of lightning lasting a little longer than the others showed him the tear tracks down her cheeks, and she seemed as ready to welcome the sunrise as Erik felt. Yet, she half supported, half dragged him toward the relative safety of their destroyed lair. Erik wanted to flee, remembering all too well what would happen next. But at the same time, he couldn't make himself shrug off the arm around him, couldn't escape Gabrielle's hold when he was pulled onto the older vampire's lap. Couldn't stop shaking. Gabrielle's blunt teeth against his neck weren't a surprise, but the soothing hand running up and down his back was. He didn't have to plead for a stronger connection; he soon felt the deliciously painful tearing of Gabrielle's fangs into his flesh, on the opposite side to where Catarina had bitten earlier. He wondered, briefly, if Gabrielle had noticed the other marks, but couldn't manage to care one way or the other. Fingers threaded through his blood-matted hair and pushed him forward into Gabrielle's neck. The gesture confused him for an instant, he did not remember things happening quite like that; but he took the hint anyway, biting down and taking what was offered. All thoughts disappeared, replaced by the glorious feeling of thick, powerful blood sliding down his throat. The shared offering lasted mere seconds—they had both lost too much blood already to be able to spare more. As they let go of each other, other instincts pushed forward, and by then Erik was too far gone to even remember this happening centuries earlier. Following her lead, he pulled at her clothes until she was as bare as he was. She was covered in scratches, and he kissed and licked each cut, each bruise, like she did to his own. When she pushed him down to lie on the floor, he obeyed her silent request, clutching her wrist as though a safe line. She straddled his thighs, but rather than taking him inside of her, she reached to his neck and caressed Catarina's marks. He kept his eyes on his Sire's face, his gaze slipping down to her lips as they started moving. "You turned her, didn't you?" "Yes." Her hand slid up his neck and to his cheek, where she wiped off a tear at the corner of his eye. "I know how much it hurts,” she said after a moment, the words slow on her lips. “I've lost Childer tonight, too."

Before he could say anything, she started talking again. “It doesn't hurt as much as losing you did, though." He blinked, unsure whether he had understood her words correctly, unsure of what she could possibly mean by that. She didn't explain herself, at least not until after she had guided his cock to her core. "Want you so much,” she said then, the slow rising and lowering of her hips punctuating her words. “Been wanting you for so long. Need you. More than I can say. More than I know how to show." And each of these words was like balm soothing a raw wound. He had longed so much to hear such tender things from her; was this what he had not heard, the first time around? How could she say such things now, when in a few hours she would abandon him? "Sire—” he started, ready to beg if he had to, to make sure she wouldn't leave him alone again, but she didn't let him finish. "Gabrielle,” she said, shaking her head. “You're a Master, now. My equal." "Gabrielle,” he repeated, glad at that instant that he couldn't hear the undoubtedly pathetic tone in his own voice. She leaned down to press a hard, bruising kiss to his lips, and he responded by arching into her the next time she thrust down; the old dance, older than vampires and humans alike, truly started. But even as Erik steadily climbed toward his release and pushed Gabrielle toward hers, a feeling of dread returned to him, this awful certainty that, when they came, they would tell each other goodbye. Because of that, he tried to fight it, tried to deny himself the completion his body was screaming for. But Gabrielle made sure he came with her, along with a hoarse cry of despair. **** Erik was nothing if not stubborn. He knew night had fallen again, the day passed and gone as he slept curled against Gabrielle. He knew, because it had happened before, once in reality and so many times in his dreams, that when he opened his eyes he would be alone. So, he stubbornly refused to wake up. Instead, he kept his eyes tightly shut, and tried to think of nothing, no one. Maybe if he remained here long enough— An arm snaked around his waist, pulled him closer to another naked body. Startled, he opened wide eyes, and discovered a sad face he hadn't expected to see for a few decades. The ruins were dark, the lightning of the supernatural storm having abated, but there was enough ambient light for Erik to read the words forming on Gabrielle's blood-tinted lips. "I'm not leaving you. Not this time. Not ever again." The End

About the Author: Kallysten is a French citizen whose most exciting accomplishment to date was to cross a few thousand

miles and an ocean to pursue (and catch!) the love of her life. She has been writing for almost fifteen years, and always enjoyed sharing her stories and listening to the readers’ reactions. After playing with science fiction, short stories, poetry and fanfiction, she is now trying her hand, heart and words at paranormal romance novels. To see her other novels, visit: original.kallysten.net Other stories in The Pacts series available at Alinar Publishing: All Things Except Blood Vampire Eyrin lives in a world in which her kind seals pacts with humans and protects them from fearsome demons in exchange for blood. She is one of her clan's strongest fighters, until the night when she is gravely wounded, in both her flesh and spirit. Disfigured, she hides from all and refuses to feed. Returning to the lair, her human lover Ian is shocked to discover her condition but resolute to show her she is still as beautiful in his eyes. He offers her blood and comfort, causing Eyrin to do the one thing forbidden to Childer—take his life. When Ian awakens a vampire, sired not by her but by the clan's Master instead, Eyrin reluctantly takes on the task of teaching him about his new existence. But her guilt over killing him makes this responsibility a heavy burden for Eyrin, and the new relationship they forge is a far cry from the one they used to share. Will Ian be able to reach out for her again, or will she keep her door and heart locked to him? + Souls Night To be allowed to join the Fighters who protect her village from fierce demons, Mierna has to go through the woods on Souls Night in search of a weapon. What she finds, instead, is a strikingly attractive vampire who once kept her people safe along with his now lost clan. To her surprise, Elden gives her the sword she had come to steal, and when she asks, he accepts to teach her how to use it. In exchange, she offers him a few mouthfuls of her blood. Hundreds of years after the Pact between her village and Elden was broken, it is a very different relationship that Mierna develops with the handsome but taciturn vampire; and when saying goodbye becomes too difficult, unexpected allies might help convince him that she's not the child he would like to see in her—not a child, but maybe a Childe. www.alinarpublishing.com

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