Immortal Past

A Forever Knight Story by Christine Hantzopulos Hunt

erika1228@aol.com

*How long had they waited? How long had they *wanted*, desired, yet dared not hope for what was finally theirs tonight? Natalie trembled at his touch, the hands so warm now, so *human*, as he explored her with a wonder that he could do so without the beast intruding upon them. Passionate but gentle, erotic but loving, they held each other as if they would never let go.

Never....

And as they fell asleep in each other’s arms, there were tears in her eyes. She had never been so happy, and never could be again. Never....*

She awoke with a start, almost expecting to feel the warmth of his naked skin against hers, wanting him just as much as she had in the dream, her body physically aching for him, her heart crying out for him.

Why now? Why, after all this time?

She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to focus on the here and now, the life that she’d struggled so hard to make for herself. She’d been happy. She *was* happy. And everything was as it should be.

As if on cue, her husband turned over, awake, throwing his arm gently over her to pull her closer. She snuggled next to him, and smiled. Even in the darkness of the early dawn, his blue eyes shone as he looked at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

She smiled, running a hand through his tousled blond hair. “I’m fine. I just can’t sleep.”

“Me neither,” he replied. “But it’s still too early to get out of bed.”

She smiled, catching his meaning, reaching up to kiss him tenderly.

Later, she lay in his arms, safe, fulfilled, as the birds outside the window heralded in a new day. He’d found her so anxious for him, so passionate, so aroused....

...and yet it filled her with guilt to know that she’d made love to him this morning with a passion that belonged to a specter of her past. A past she’d thought she’d escaped so long ago....

“I love you, Natalie,” he whispered in her ear.

“I love you too, Steven,” she said softly. And she meant it. She really did.

But as he left her to take a shower, the tears still found their way to her eyes. And the dull ache in the pit of her stomach was back. When would she be free of it?

“Never,” she whispered.

The morning sun seemed to send the shadows of her past cowering into the recesses of her mind. And as Steven came up behind her as she made breakfast, kissing her on the cheek, and whispering, “Happy Birthday, Hon,” she knew. Of course! Didn’t she always remember on this day? Didn’t her thoughts always find their way back to that night so long ago, on her twenty-eighth birthday, when Nick had sat up on her gurney at the morgue....How long ago it seemed...seventeen years. It *was* long ago. But he had inexorably changed the course of her life. And maybe that was why every year, especially on this day, she thought of him....

“I’ll be home by six,” Steven was saying, snapping her attention gladly back to the present. “Remember, we’re trying that new restaurant downtown. And I thought then we could go to a movie...”

“Which movie, Dad?” their daughter asked from the breakfast table.

“Oh, I think Mom should decide,” he said, sitting beside the twelve-year old. Her long blond hair and blue eyes were so much like Steven’s, and Natalie couldn’t help but smile at the adoration in her husband’s eyes as he looked at her.

“What do *you* want to see?” Natalie offered as she set plates of pancakes in front of them. She took her own seat beside her son, placing the dish and fork in front of the four-year old, watching out of the corner of her eye as he reached to feed himself. “Wait, let Mommy cut them up for you, Richie,” she told him as she used the fork to cut the hotcakes into bite sized pieces.

“Well, if you’re leaving it up to me, I want to see Memnoc the Devil.”

Natalie froze, and looked up at her. Steven was simply regarding his daughter quizzically.

“It’s the latest Anne Rice vampire movie,” she explained, as if she thought the adults were clueless. “You know, Daddy, we saw the other four on tape. Interview, LeStat, Queen of the Damned--”

“No,” Natalie cut her off suddenly and unequivocally, then, catching herself, said, “We’re taking your brother...”

“Oh, come on!” she begged. “What does that mean? We’ve gotta see a Disney movie...?”

“No, just something else,” she said, turning back to Richard’s attempts to feed himself, not wanting to meet her daughter’s eyes.

“But Mom, vampires are so sexy!”

Natalie shot her a glance, unable to control the concern that bordered on fear. “They are *not* sexy. They’re monsters. They’re dangerous. I told you no, Nicolette! No more discussion!”

Her daughter was looking at her in surprise. It wasn’t often that Natalie called her by her full name. For a moment, Natalie wasn’t sure just what to say, and was relieved when her husband took over.

“Come on, Niki. You know your mother doesn’t like that kind of movie. We’ll see something else. Why not the new Star Wars sequel?”

Nicolette was silent, preferring to sulk. After Steven had left, Natalie sat down again to face her daughter as Richie ran inside to get back to his video.

“Niki, I’m sorry. I’m just not in the mood tonight. How about if Saturday afternoon while Daddy’s home with Richie, we go to see it--just you and me.”

Nicolette’s face brightened. “Really?”

Natalie nodded and smiled at her, guilty for having let her own anxiety make her snap at her daughter. How could Nicolette know? How could any of them know? Even Steven, in the ten years they’d been married, had never pushed her to talk about her past....

Her daughter’s hug warmed her. This was her life. This was her happiness. Not the ugly past that lived on in her nightmares....

The restaurant had only just opened, yet it had become one of the hottest spots in town. Natalie had argued against such an expensive dinner, but Steven had insisted, as part of her present. The dress code was formal, and Nicolette had been thrilled when they’d gone shopping that afternoon. The dress made her look at least fifteen, and Natalie had allowed her heavier makeup just for the occasion.

Natalie herself felt marvelous. In a black silk dress, and with her hair down as she’d worn it when she was younger, she almost had trouble believing she was forty-five. At fifty, Steven was always telling her that she looked like she was still in her thirties. She smiled as he finished his meal and placed his hand over hers. How handsome he was, how stunning in his crisp new suit. And Richie, beside him, looked adorable in the tiny suit patterned after his father’s. The dreams of last night, of that other life, seemed to melt into oblivion....

“This is some place,” she commented as she looked around. “And so busy. Whoever owns it must be making a fortune.”

“They say some woman owns it,” her husband replied. “A rich heiress from France.” He glanced around. “I think that’s her over there,” he said, motioning to the far end of the room.

Natalie’s eyes followed his to the dark-haired woman in black, talking to a waiter. Suddenly, Natalie felt her body grow cold. It couldn’t be. The woman turned around, and as their eyes met, a glint of recognition, of surprise, greeted her. Natalie’s lips parted in shock.

It was Janette.

“Nat? What is it?”

“I...know her,” she stammered.

“From where, Mom?” Nicolette asked.

Natalie took a deep breath, bracing herself as Janette began to make her way towards them. “From a long time ago,” she said softly.

“Natalie!” Janette’s voice was pleasant, though her face betrayed an utter astonishment. And it was at that moment that the true meaning of immortality impacted upon Natalie.

Janette had not changed in fourteen years.

Still youthful, still beautiful, Janette had literally stepped out of a page of their past. And suddenly, Natalie felt the passage of time, and the toll it had taken on her, both physically and emotionally. Janette still looked to be no more than thirty. And Natalie felt every one of her forty-five years as she looked at her. She knew it shouldn’t matter. There was no more Nick to compete for. And yet it was painfully clear to her that if her life had gone differently, and she had been with him today, he would still be the same as he had been, while her own youth was slipping away.....

“Janette,” she found the voice to say. “It’s been a long time.”

“You’re looking well, Natalie,” Janette said all-too-nicely.

“And you haven’t changed a bit,” she replied with a wan smile. She saw Janette glance at Steven and the children, and quickly said, “Janette, this is my husband Steven. And my children...Nicolette and Richard. Janette is...an old friend.”

Steven stood politely. “Very nice to meet you. You have a lovely place here.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling sweetly, as if totally enchanted with the meeting. She looked at the children, her glance resting finally on Nicolette. “Hello. I’ve known your mother a very long time.”

And then, as Nicolette’s eyes met hers with a cold stare, Janette let out a slight gasp. And though she tried to cover it quickly, Natalie had caught the strange expression, the complete wonder, the confusion...the fear? Natalie’s heart skipped a beat as Janette tore her eyes from the child as if afraid to look at her.

Janette’s facade kicked in. She turned to the waiter, who had just slipped the check in front of Steven. “No, this is on the house,” she told the young man.

“You don’t have to do that,” Natalie said stiffly.

“That’s not really necessary,” Steven protested, but Janette wouldn’t hear of it.

“Please. It’s the least I can do. Your wife and I go back a long way.” She turned back to Natalie. “I hope we can chat a bit before you leave?” Natalie knew it was more than a pleasant request and she nodded as Janette excused herself and left, as if afraid to stay at the table for too long.

“I don’t like her,” Nicolette declared as soon as Janette was out of human earshot.

“Shhhh,” her mother admonished her, knowing that Janette had probably heard. “Why, Niki?”

“I don’t know,” the girl replied honestly.

But Natalie knew. And the knowledge terrified her.

Saying she was afraid they’d miss the movie, Natalie stood, wanting to get her family as far from the restaurant as possible. But she knew she could not leave without the inevitable confrontation she’d hoped never to have, with Janette, or any other vampire she had known. Telling Steven and the children she’d meet them outside, she found Janette at the bar, drinking the same dreadfully familiar mixture she’d drunk so many years ago at the Raven.

“I don’t have much time,” she told Janette as she came up to face her.

Janette nodded, motioning for Natalie to follow her into her private office. She seemed so pensive as she sat down, but her smile for Natalie was genuine. “It *is* good to see you, Natalie. When Nicolas told me you’d gone away...” She stopped, and Natalie knew that her face had paled at the mention of his name.

“I’d rather we didn’t talk about him,” she said quietly as she settled into a chair.

“He always speaks of *you*. And I know he’s tried so many times to find you...almost from the day you left Toronto.”

She didn’t need to hear this. She didn’t want to hear this. And yet she wanted to hear of him, his life....his progress.

“How is he?” she asked softly. “Does he still...try?”

Janette sighed, with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t see him often...perhaps every three or four years. But I know it’s been difficult for him. He’s been very unhappy...bitter...and he keeps to himself. Yet he hasn’t tried to become mortal--not since that last time. It’s as if he’s accepted his damnation, as he sees it. And he just goes on existing, without really living....”

She could see the sadness in Janette’s eyes, and could only imagine Nick’s own sorrow. But she didn’t want to imagine it. She couldn’t allow herself to. It would only feed into her own.

“He misses you deeply,” Janette told her honestly. And Natalie knew it was a difficult admission for her, that Natalie had left a void in Nick that Janette was unable to fill.

“Why are you telling me this?” she whispered, feeling her emotions about to erupt.

“Because you still care about him,” she replied. Janette hesitated, as if searching for the right words, before she asked, “She’s his daughter, isn’t she?”

A cold chill ran down Natalie’s spine. She shook her head, praying Janette could not read the lie in her eyes. “Of course not. She’s Steven’s daughter. She has his eyes, his hair--”

“And Nick’s,” Janette said almost in wonder. “That’s why you left, isn’t it? That’s why he *let* you go. He never told me, but it all makes sense, now.”

Natalie felt tears welling in her eyes. The secret that she had shared with no one, not even Steven, wonderful Steven, who had adopted Niki without ever asking, ever pressuring her to tell him about her father... finally she could share it with someone who could understand her turmoil. And yet, the fact that Janette had guessed filled her with fear. If Janette could look at Niki and know, couldn’t others? Couldn’t LaCroix?

“Janette, please. You can’t tell anyone. I’m begging you. For my daughter’s safety. For her life....”

“I won’t have to, Natalie. This city is filled with vampires. I knew when I saw her. Not just because she looks like Nicolas. But I saw it in her eyes--the way she looked at me--”

Now it was Janette who seemed stricken with fear. For herself, for Natalie, and the unknowing child, Nicolas’ child.

“Natalie, she is a dhampir. Half-mortal, half vampire. A hunter. She is a danger to every vampire, and as such in danger herself.”

“No,” Natalie denied vehemently. “You’re wrong. Nick was wrong. She’s just a little girl. A normal, human child--”

“A child who’s growing into a woman,” Janette warned her. “How old is she, Natalie? Twelve? Has she reached puberty yet? Because if she has, it has already begun.”

Natalie shook her head, refusing to accept what she knew in her heart she must. “She doesn’t even know that vampires exist,” Natalie told her.

“But she will. She sensed me. Just as I sensed her. And others will sense her...” She took a deep breath. “They may already have sensed her. You must take her away, Natalie. Because if others have seen her, they will call the Enforcers. A dhampir is rare. They will take her, and study her, and kill her!”

“Stop it!” she cried, panic setting in. “Janette, she’s just a little girl. She couldn’t harm anyone. I’m warning you, if you tell anyone about her...”

“I won’t have to, Natalie. I told you, others will know.” She put a hand on Natalie’s arm. “Listen to me. I would not betray you or your daughter. For Nicolas’ sake, as well as yours. But you can not stay in this city. There were dozens of vampires in here tonight. It’s not so strong in her, because she’s young, but soon it will become obvious. You must take her away!”

The compassion in Janette’s eyes was overwhelming, and Natalie knew that she was right. The moment she had dreaded, the day she had pretended would never come, had snuck up on her at the moment when her life had seemed most secure. And now that it had, she knew nothing would ever be the same again.

“You’re right,” she said dully. “I know. I’ve always known. I just didn’t want to accept it. We can’t stay in one place. We can’t be anywhere for too long where vampires might spot her. Nick told me that long ago, and yet--”

“You thought it would never happen,” Janette finished for her gently. “You thought if you forgot about us, and lost yourself in your mortal world, that it would all go away.”

“Is there anything so wrong with that, Janette?” she asked desperately, her large blue eyes brimming with the tears about to burst. “Wanting to live a normal life? To forget all the pain? The sadness? The fear?”

“No,” Janette said kindly, with understanding. “But you can’t escape it. Any more than Nicolas has been able to.”

Natalie stood from her chair, drawing in a deep breath to take control of her emotions. “Janette, I’ll only ask you one favor. If you see Nick...if you talk to him before I have a chance to leave...”

“What should I tell him?” she asked softly.

“Nothing.”

Janette looked at her dubiously. “Is that fair?”

No, it wasn’t. But... “It’s the only way.”

“Natalie, he has suffered for almost thirteen years. Alone. Without the joy of watching your child grow. Without knowing where you were, where she was. He probably doesn’t even know if he has a daughter or a son.”

“We decided it would be better that way,” she explained.

“He may have thought that was the right thing to do, but I know he regretted it the moment you were gone. And though he never spoke of the child, I understand now why he sank into the depths of depression that he did.”

“Please, Janette,” she begged. She couldn’t bear to hear this.

“He has never recovered, Natalie,” Janette continued, not willing to let her walk away without knowing. “You’re going away. I won’t be able to tell him where you are. Can’t you at least allow me to tell him that he has a daughter, and that the two of you are all right?”

Natalie felt the tears coming to her eyes again. “Yes,” she managed. “But give me a week, Janette. Time to get away.”

Janette nodded her agreement. “Is there...anything special you’d like me to tell him?”

There was so much! A thousand things swirled through her mind, a thousand messages she’d secretly wished she could get to him over the years, along with the pictures of Niki so that he could be as proud of her as she was. Yet what could she tell him that would not make him yearn for more, for contact with her, with Niki, for a life they had been robbed of, and could never have? “Tell him, we’re okay,” she said simply, her voice choked with emotion. “And that...I want him to be happy.” She bit her tongue, keeping herself from saying anything more. That she still loved him. That she missed him. That she needed him desperately now. That she was afraid....

“I’ll tell him,” Janette promised.

Natalie thanked her and turned to go, but Janette called her back. She turned to see the vampire’s face still filled with concern, with feeling.

“Natalie...be careful.”

Natalie rushed from the restaurant trying desperately to compose herself before facing Steven and the kids. He knew her so well, they all did. They would sense something was wrong.

And something *was* terribly wrong. The life that they knew was about to be torn apart by forces they could never imagine existed. And the past she had obscured from them, to protect them, to protect her very sanity, would now come back to haunt them, to plague them, perhaps for the rest of their lives. They didn’t deserve this--not Steven, who had been so loving and supportive since the day they’d met. Not Nicolette, an innocent child who had no idea of her own nature. And certainly not Richie, a baby really, a human child whom she should never have had knowing what lay in store.

But she *had* denied it, or tried to, all these years. She could deny it no more.

“Sorry,” she said with a smile as she met them outside. “I had to stop off at the ladies room.”

A lie. Another lie to compound the lie that her entire life with them had been.

Steven looked at her strangely, and asked, “Are you okay?” as the kids walked ahead to the car.

She couldn’t lie to him anymore. “No. There’s something...we need to talk about. Tonight okay? Let’s not spoil the evening.”

Reluctantly he agreed, putting his arm around her shoulder, wanting to comfort her, as he always did, by holding her close.

But there would be no comfort tonight. Not now. Not ever. And never again would she feel safe in his arms. Safety was something she had lost.

He stood in the shadows, watching. He’d followed her from the restaurant, not sure.... But yes. She had aged, as all mortals do. But it was her. When he’d glimpsed her eyes, he’d known. His memory was perfect; but even if it hadn’t been, he couldn’t forget those eyes. Those beautiful wide blue eyes that he’d gazed into as he’d tried to control her mind all those years ago....

And now she was here. In this city. Fate, wasn’t it, that they should meet again? And how quaintly mortal she seemed, with her mortal husband, her family....

They were insignificant. Specks of dust. But she, on the other hand....

She was his. He’d wanted her since that night. And now, as providence would have it, here she was for the taking....

Spaceships zoomed past each other at dizzying speed, as the Rebel forces and the Empire clashed in battle. On her left, Steven watched entranced, while on her right, Niki waited patiently for another glimpse of the young actor who was equivalent to the Han Solo of Natalie’s generation. Natalie had made sure to sit next to Nicolette, and she could not help glancing around from time to time, wondering if anyone had followed them here. Richie had long since fallen asleep, and she held him protectively in her lap. How could she protect them? How could she protect any of them?

She stared ahead at the screen, but the images went past her unseen. Another time, another galaxy far far away had captured her mind, as the images of the past danced before her....

*”Are you sure it will work?”

Nick’s enthusiasm was tempered this time by the disappointment of his last attempt. Yet the hope that had left his eyes for so long had never seemed as strong again as it did today.

She looked into his eyes, knowing he could read her every emotion--her hopes, her fears....her love for him. “I can’t be sure. It’s a new strain. Your blood samples seem to have reacted favorably. The retrovirus hasn’t mutated...but I’ve only been working on it for a month. If you build up a tolerance to the dosage...”

She didn’t have to finish. He could become addicted to the leitovuterine C just as he had to its predecessor. Or its effectiveness could simply wear off, cutting short his latest endeavor to become mortal. She didn’t have the heart to see him disappointed again. Nor could she deny him what seemed a viable possibility of success. It was his decision. It had to be.

He squeezed her hand, resignation in his eyes.

“Let’s do it.”

She hesitated. “Are *you* absolutely sure?”

He pulled her closer, into his arms. “Nat, we’ve come so far since the last time...you and I. I want more. I want to be *with* you. If there’s even a chance it could work this time for me...for us...”

She could deny him nothing when he looked at her that way. And the mere thought, the mere possibility, of sharing a real life with him, was as intoxicating as his gaze. “Okay,” she agreed.

He smiled, giving her a kiss. “Okay, doctor. Whenever you’re ready.”

She took a deep breath. “I guess now’s as good a time as any.” She reached for the syringe.

Again, the excruciating agony on his face, crying out as the serum ripped through his body. Even knowing it would happen made it no easier for her to watch his suffering. She held his hand tightly, letting him grasp onto her as he rode out the wave of pain....

And then, nothing. Peace flooded his face. Then relief, and wonder. “It’s gone again, Nat. It’s gone,” he said in a broken voice.

Tears filled her eyes as he rose from the gurney, reaching out for her. He took her face in his hands, kissing her passionately, with the freedom of knowing now that the beast would not intrude upon them.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear as he held her tightly.

“I love you, too,” she responded, barely able to speak. And as they separated, she asked, “So, what’s the first thing you want to do now that you’re mortal again?”

“I want to take you home,” he said with feeling. “And this time, if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend the day.”

He’d spent the day. And nights and days after that. And each time he’d made love to her had been as exciting as the first, each precious moment that they spent together more intoxicating than the last. She’d barely argued when he’d pleaded with her to call in sick for a couple of days. And when he’d surprised her a week later with plane tickets to Hawaii, it hadn’t even occurred to her to debate him on their responsibilities to real life. Real life could wait. They’d waited, suffered too long for this. Simple pleasures that had eluded them were theirs now. And they would not take for granted one moment they could walk hand in hand in the sunshine. For them it had truly been the stuff only dreams were made of--until now.

Three weeks later, they lay with their bodies entwined on the private beach in Kauai that had been their idyllic hideaway. Nick pulled her closer under the blanket that guarded them from the cool night air, and Natalie kissed him deeply as she ran a hand through his sand-filled hair, reveling in the delight of his naked body pressing against hers.

“I want you again, Nat,” he said softly, so that she could barely hear him above the breaking of the waves against the beach. He smiled, looking into her eyes as if all he could ever want in life were there. “And again...and again....”

And she gave herself to him once more, relishing every caress, every sensation, as their bodies rocked gently together in their passion.

Later, as he held her still in his embrace, he whispered, “I wish we could stay here for the rest of our lives.”

“So do I,” she murmured, then looked up at him with a smile.

“But we have to go back sometime, you know. We do have our jobs...”

“Nat, there’s at least ten billion dollars in the bank,” he teased. “We don’t *have* to work another day in our lives if we don’t want to.” But at her admonishing look, he sobered. “Okay, okay, you’re right. We do have to go back sooner or later. I’d just rather it be later.”

So would she, if the truth be known. But there was something else--some apprehension she’d felt in him every time they’d spoken of returning to their lives in Toronto. “What is it, Nick? Why are you afraid to go back?”

She’d hit the nail on the head. He *was* afraid. She could see it in his eyes as her words hit home. He’d tried to obscure it from her, but confronted now, he wouldn’t pretend it wasn’t there. He couldn’t. They’d bared their souls to each other in these last few weeks, and it would have been unthinkable to keep anything from each other.

“Nat, here we’re away from it all. That other life.” He paused. “LaCroix. I don’t know how he’ll react once he knows I’m mortal. And this time--I don’t have the power to protect you.”

“Nick, he knew we were together again. He hasn’t tried to come between us since that last time...” She tried to suppress her own involuntary shudder as she remembered their ordeal on Valentine’s Day. A conflict long resolved--but never forgotten.

He touched her cheek, warming her. “I know. But that was different. I was still a vampire--”

“Nick, if he wanted to, he could find us wherever we are, eventually. We can’t spend the rest of our lives running...”

He looked down at her with profound sadness in his eyes, as he said, “It’s so unfair of me to bring you into this....”

“Shhh,” she soothed him, placing her fingers over his lips. “I don’t want to hear that. I’m in this for the whole nine yards. I’m ready to take the bad with the good. I always was.”

He kissed her fingers, then caressed them with his own. “I know. And that’s what makes you so incredible.” He kissed her. “I suppose I also find it hard to believe that this is real. That it won’t fail again. That I won’t go back--”

Natalie reached up to run her fingers through his hair, kissing him again. There was nothing she could say to reassure him on that count. All she could do was show him that she would be there for him no matter what....

When they had separated, he looked down at her with a new sense of peace. “You know, when we do go back, there is something we should do right away.”

“What’s that?” she asked, smiling brightly at him, glad to see the lines of worry gone from his face.

“Well, I know it’s a little backwards...I mean, usually people spend their honeymoon in Hawaii....but, um, will you marry me, Natalie?”

Her heart skipped a beat. She felt tears of joy rising to her eyes, as he looked at her expectantly. “Yes, Nick. I will...” she managed, though she was sure her answer was written all over her face.

Relief flooded his face, as he brought his lips down on hers.

Hours later, Natalie awoke to feel the first rays of sunlight touch her face. Still asleep, Nick was nestled peacefully against her, his face buried in her breasts. She smiled down at him, wishing he were awake to see the splendid red-orange sky as the sun made its way over the blue horizon of the Pacific. How he’d watched his first sunrise in wonder, never losing his awe with each new dawn! But she decided to let him sleep. They’d have thousands of sunrises to share.

Gently, she slipped out from under him, rising to put on the bikini she’d discarded last night, not trusting the privacy of this beach as much as he did in the daylight. She sat down again beside him in the sand, looking down at his face as he turned in his sleep.

And suddenly, something was terribly wrong. The soft tan he’d acquired had turned into a red burn, his face seeming to grow hotter as the sun rose higher in the sky. Suddenly, a wisp of smoke lifted up from his face.

“Nick!” she shouted in panic. But as his eyes opened tiredly, the sun’s rays seemed to blind him. He cried out, sitting up, covering his eyes. And when he opened them again, they’d taken on an amber glow....

“Nat, I can’t see! I’m blind!”

Without stopping to think, she grabbed the blanket, wrapping it around his body, covering his head, leading him back into the house. “It’ll be okay,” she kept saying over and over, though her voice betrayed her own near-hysteria. She led him into the bedroom, where the blinds were shut tightly, helping him onto the bed. “Lie down...you’re safe now. It’s okay....”

Only when she’d pulled the blanket from him, did she see the full extent of his injuries. The burn on his face was matched by at least three more on his body. And as he looked up at her with unseeing, but terror-stricken amber eyes, she realized that his fangs were protruding. “It’ll be all right,” she told him, squeezing his hand, unafraid. And she cursed herself for the tremor in her voice which he surely would not fail to notice.

In a few minutes, his eyes had healed, and he’d willed his fangs to retract. But his face was filled with anguish as he begged her for another shot of leitovuterine. “Nat, please...”

She had no choice. There was no blood for him here. And the trip home would never be accomplished before daylight came again. She found the syringe, injecting him, grief overwhelming her as his body was racked with pain as it hadn’t been since the first time.

When he had calmed down, he sat up to face her, his eyes filled with a horror he was not yet ready to express. “How long will it last?” he asked softly, his voice choked with emotion.

“Just long enough to get you home,” she whispered, letting him fall into her arms. She held him tightly as he buried his face in her hair, letting his silent tears fall. She wouldn’t let him see her own. For God knew, she had enough for both of them.*

The kids had fallen asleep on the car ride home, and an uncharacteristic silence had fallen between Natalie and Steven. She knew he was waiting for her to talk; to give him some inkling as to what had kept her so preoccupied all night. He reached over, putting a hand on her thigh, and she turned to offer him a reassuring smile. He seemed satisfied. But as he turned his attention back to the road, her mind sank once more into the quagmire of memories that tonight’s events had dredged up from the pit of her soul....

*The loft was dark, a telltale sign of the deep depression which had plagued him since their return. At first, Natalie thought he wasn’t home. But then she saw the silhouette of his form against the backdrop of stars, as he stood in front of the window, immersed in his endless night.

“Nick?” she said softly, though she knew that with his preternatural hearing he had to have known she was standing right behind him.

He turned to her slowly, the shame of the bottle in his hand written on his face. She pointedly ignored it, pretended it wasn’t there. This wasn’t his choice, and she knew it. He needed his strength, and would have to maintain his diet of cow’s blood for quite some time.

She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to hold him. But he’d been so distant since they’d come back from Hawaii the day before yesterday, almost as if afraid to be too close to her. She wouldn’t push him, no matter how badly she needed to feel his arms around her. “Hi,” she said quietly.

He took her hand and squeezed it. “Hi, Nat.” A restrained desire, so much like her own.

“Well, Sydney was glad to be home,” she said conversationally. “Three weeks at the kennel is not his idea of a vacation. I think next time, we ought to take him.”

He smiled a painful smile. “Next time.” As if there would be no next time.

She couldn’t stand this anymore. “Nick, I know you’re hurting. I...I am too. But please, don’t shut me out.”

“What do you expect me to do, Nat? Can I kiss you when I’m like this? Can I make love to you?” He paused, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Can I marry you?”

“Maybe not right now. But what are you going to do?” she challenged. “Pretend this last month never happened?!”

He turned away from her, staring once more out the window. “It was a dream, Nat,” he said bitterly. “A beautiful dream. But now I’ve woken up. And this is my reality. A reality that doesn’t allow me to love you, and be with you like I want to. We’re back where we started.”

“No,” she told him, her face flushed with anger. “We can’t go back. It happened. And I won’t let you toss me aside every time you have a setback and start feeling sorry for yourself!”

“Nat,” he said, turning to her, anguish in his eyes.

“No, Nick, I won’t let you do this to me again! We either try to work this out in spite of your condition, or we end it. But for good this time! No turning back. Is that what you want?”

It was an ultimatum, and she knew it. But her heart couldn’t take the uncertainty her relationship with him had meant in the past. They’d come too far. And he had to be willing to work at it no matter what.

She was trembling from anger, from wondering just what he would choose. She couldn’t go back on her word. She had to go on-- with him, or without him. There was no in-between.

Suddenly, his face softened, as his eyes filled once more with the love that she knew was still there. He took her into his arms, kissing her softly on the cheek as he ran his fingers through her hair. “Oh God, Nat, no...I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered in a broken voice. “I don’t want to lose you.” He took her face in her hands, kissing her full on the mouth, with as much passion as he dared.

She was breathless when he pulled away. God, how she wanted him! “I told you...good times or bad...I’m here....” she said, burying herself in his embrace, feeling as if she would cry with relief.

For a long time they stood there holding each other, drawing strength from the commitment that they would keep now no matter what the future held. Finally, when the separated, he looked at her with the impish grin she loved.

“Hey, Nat, how do you think Sydney would feel about moving in here?”

“I think he’d love it,” she replied, moving to kiss him again.*

Steven had carried Richie into bed, and Natalie had gone in to check on Nicolette. So much would happen, and soon her daughter would have the innocence of her childhood stripped away. So much to talk about, so much to explain....

Like always, they could sense an apprehension in each other. “Are you okay?” Natalie asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, tucking her in needlessly.

“I guess,” her daughter responded, not too convincingly. “But you’re not. I know. Ever since we saw that lady.”

Again, Natalie could feel the innocent hostility that Niki seemed to have felt towards Janette without even knowing why.

“Who is she, Mom? Where do you know her from?”

Natalie breathed deeply. “From a long time ago. Before you were born. When I lived in Canada, before I came here.”

Niki seemed to hesitate a moment, as if considering what her mother had said, and trying to formulate the next question. And then, there it was, as she blurted, “She knew my father, didn’t she?”

This took Natalie aback. Niki knew that Steven had adopted her when she was two. And she had always considered him her daddy, never asking about her biological father. To have guessed out of the blue....

But Natalie couldn’t lie to her. She never had, and never would. “Yes. She did know your father.”

Niki’s eyes opened wide as if she hadn’t really expected to be on the mark. She tried to take this all in, then asked, “Mom, what was he like?”

Such an innocuous question, which could lead to so complicated an answer. But the many things she had kept from Niki would be revealed soon enough. A simple answer would do. “He was blond, and blue-eyed, just like you...”

“Was he cute? Was he sexy?” she asked, with a typical pre-adolescent interest.

Natalie smiled. “Yes. Very.”

Niki nodded, satisfied. “Do I look like him?”

Her mother nodded sadly. “A lot.”

Niki sobered. “Was he nice? I mean, a good person?”

“A very good person,” she said honestly. What he had done in the first seven hundred years of his life could not change that.

“Did you two love each other a lot?” Niki asked. Yet Natalie knew Niki must see it in her eyes as she spoke of him.

“Uh-huh. A lot,” she told her, feeling the pain crawling up into her throat. “And we can, uh, talk about this all tomorrow, if you like. But you really should get to sleep.”

Natalie leaned down to give her a kiss goodnight, but Niki pleaded, “Wait, Mommy, just one more question, please?”

“Okay, shoot,” Natalie said, trying not to let her daughter see just how difficult this was for her.

“Why didn’t you two ever get married? If you loved each other I mean....”

Natalie took a deep breath, composing herself. “We couldn’t, Niki. There were a lot of other things going on--things that kept us from being together.” She took her daughter’s small hand in hers. “I promise you that I’ll tell you everything. You’re big enough to know. But tomorrow, okay? I really need to get to sleep, and this is too important. We have to sit down and have a nice long talk.”

“Okay,” her daughter responded, seemingly satisfied that she would learn the truth. She reached out to hug Natalie, and Natalie held her for a few moments before tucking the covers around her again.

“Good night, sweetie,” she said, standing up.

“Mommy...don’t get mad...but there’s just one thing I really want to know tonight.”

Natalie turned back to her daughter, not in the least bit angry, but afraid that she would break down if this went on much longer. “What is it, baby?” she asked softly.

“Did he know about me? Did he know you were going to have me?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, glad for the darkness that obscured the tears in her eyes. “He knew about you, Niki. And he was very, very happy.”

*She came home from work to find him in the kitchen, flipping burgers in a frying pan as if he had been a short order cook in another life. “Thought I’d surprise you and have dinner ready,” he said without looking at her. He motioned to the stove. “Burgers, vegetables...” He opened the oven, revealing the pan with his favorite delicacy.

“French fries,” she said with a smile.

Nick turned to her, looking into her eyes brightly as he caressed her arms. “I’m trying, Nat. I really am this time.”

“I know you are,” she said softly, falling gladly into his embrace. Was it her imagination, or did his lips feel warmer as he kissed her? He *had* been trying in earnest, ever since she’d moved in with him a month ago. He’d come to realize that there might be no miracle cure...and giving up the blood, completely this time, might be the only way to come back across.

“I never really gave it a chance before,” he admitted, his enthusiasm brimming over. “But this time, Nat...” He kissed her again, more deeply. And as he separated from her, he said tenderly, “Maybe it won’t be long before we’re on that beach again.”

She knew as he gazed into her eyes that he could see her intense love for him...as well as the secret she was bursting to tell.

“What is it?” he asked with sudden curiosity.

“I have a surprise of my own,” she said softly. She’d spent the last two hours envisioning all the ways she could tell him. And now, as she stood before him, it was all she could do to blurt it out. “I went to the doctor today,” she began.

Sudden concern crossed his eyes. “Are you all right?”

She almost laughed. Couldn’t he see how perfectly all right she was? She took a breath. “I’m fine...I went to him because I was late.”

Suddenly it seemed to hit him, and his mouth dropped open at the mere possibility. “Nat?” he whispered. “Are you telling me...?”

“I’m almost six weeks pregnant, Nick.”

She held her breath for his reaction. But as his look of shock transformed itself into pure joy, she could feel her own tears of happiness beginning to surface.

“But Nat, how?” he asked incredulously, grabbing her hands and holding them.

“You were there,” she teased him. “Don’t tell me that after eight hundred years you don’t know how babies are made.”

“I just can’t believe this,” he said, his voice filled with emotion as he looked her up and down, his eyes resting in wonder on her abdomen, then coming up to meet hers once more. And then he was scooping her into his arms, hugging her tightly, kissing her until she was breathless.

“Are you all right?” he asked, leading her to the couch. “Is there any thing we should be doing...anything you need...?”

“Maybe dinner?” she suggested, catching a whiff of burning meat. “Those burgers are probably charcoal by now...”

He ran to the stove to find their dinner burnt beyond recognition. Even the fries were crisper than he could stomach. He shrugged at her with a sheepish smile and she laughed.

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him as he came to sit beside her. “We can order something in.”

“No,” he told her, taking her hand. “The sun’s almost down. We’ll go out. Celebrate.”*

“Natalie.”

She hadn’t heard Steven come into the bedroom, and as she looked at him now, the deep concern in his eyes, the present came flooding back. Janette’s warning. Nicolette. They had to get away.

But how would she ever explain this to a man who had no idea of what her life had been before she’d met him? How could she possibly convey the insanity that only years had helped her to accept herself? Yet she owed it to him. He’d given so much, to her, to Nicolette, asking nothing in return. He’d accepted them at face value, never prying, never pressing...perhaps hoping that with his love he could make whatever had hurt her melt into the past.

And he had. For so long that Natalie had begun to believe in her mortal life, and its power to erase all that had come before.

But it never had. Not really. And the time of reckoning had come, as she had always dreaded it would.

“Steven, we have to talk.” But how to begin? How to make the unbelievable sound real?

“Okay. I’m listening.” And as he sat across from her on the bed, she knew that he sensed this was more than just a passing problem. This was the moment he had waited for for over ten years. Patiently. Lovingly. He took her hand.

“Nat, whatever it is--”

“I just don’t know if you’ll believe me,” she began, then took a deep breath. “But you have to. And you have to trust me.”

“I do....”

“Steven, Niki’s life could depend on it.”

His eyes opened wide. This was not something he had expected. “Niki’s life? What’s going on, Nat? Does it have to do with that woman in the restaurant?” At her nod, he paused. “Does this have to do with...her father?”

“Yes,” she said, feeling the pang that had gone through his heart.

“Does he...want to see her? Are you afraid he’ll hurt her?” he asked, possibilities racing through his mind that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“No. He could never hurt her. But there are people who might, if they knew about her. Niki...is very special. She’s not like other human children.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, as she saw the doubt cross his eyes.

“You said you would trust me,” she reminded him sternly. “This isn’t going to be easy, Steven. God knows, telling you this is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. But we have to protect her.”

“Okay, Natalie.” He squeezed her hand as he forced the uncertainty from his face. “Just tell me. Why is Niki...different? Does it have something to do with her father?”

She sighed deeply, then looked into his eyes, knowing that only her steady gaze would convince him that she was serious...and sane. “Her father was a vampire.”

“Oh, Nat, you expect me to believe that vampires exist? That her father was one? This is crazy--”

“I know it is,” she told him, her glare unwavering. “You don’t have to tell me. I lived through it. And I’ve lived with this secret--his secret--for seventeen years, never able to tell anyone...” She paused, her voice cracking with emotion as she whispered, “Not even you.”

Steven studied her a moment, his inner conflict played out on his face. Finally, he lifted his hand to her cheek, caressing her softly. “I’m sorry, Nat. I told you a long time ago that I would be ready to listen, whenever you wanted to tell me about your past. It just sounds so incredible--”

“I know,” she said, covering his hand with hers.

“But I’m here for you, baby. Tell me now. Tell me all of it.”

Relief flooded her as she realized that he would listen. And believe. So she began. From the beginning.

The morgue. Nick waking up. Trying to hypnotize her, but unable. Testing her. Their growing friendship. His quest for mortality. Her search for a cure. The cow’s blood. Janette. The Raven. The Enforcers.

Richard.

Roger Jameson. Nick’s jealousy. The closeness, becoming a love they dared not admit. Then Valentine’s Day.

Azure.

LaCroix.

A new beginning, once he’d decided to stay. The cure that failed. The cure that worked...for a short time. Kauai. Those beautiful days in the sun....

Then disappointment again. But a commitment that could weather anything. And then new hope. Her pregnancy....

For hours he’d listened, voicing only a question from time to time. They’d gotten past the point where she wondered if he believed her. He did. And his expression wavered between fascination...and jealousy. It was so difficult to talk about Nick...to tell Steven all Nick had meant to her...to obscure from him the vestiges of those feelings that still lingered....

“So why did you leave?” he asked quietly. “If everything was going so well...he was on his way to coming across...you were pregnant...with his child....”

“I had to,” she said emotionlessly. And as she retold it, it came back to her, as powerfully as if she had been transplanted into the past....

*Dinner had been exquisite, although Natalie knew from her experience of the last few days that by morning she would probably be sick to her stomach. But it didn’t matter. Their world was near perfect again, filled with a hope that grew even as the tiny life inside her.

“And you’re sure everything’s all right?” he asked again as he watched her undress for bed.

She slid in beside him, “Everything’s fine,” she yawned, closing her eyes as she snuggled against him. Peace and exhaustion enveloped her, and she let herself drift into sweet dreams of their child....

His sudden cry of terror jolted her awake. She looked at him in fear as the blood tears dripped from his still-closed eyes, a crimson perspiration dotting his tortured countenance. “Nick, wake up!” she cried, shaking him.

“No, LaCroix...I won’t do it!” he cried hoarsely.

“Nick!”

Her urgency penetrated his nightmare, and his eyes snapped open. For a moment he stared at her, disoriented, then closed his eyes, heaving a sigh of relief as the past slipped back into its hiding place within his subconscious.

“Are you all right?” she asked, wiping his forehead with a tissue.

The sight of the blood elicited a look of disgust from him, then embarrassment. “I’m sorry, this is really--”

“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “What were you dreaming about?”

“LaCroix. And something that happened a long time ago,” he responded vaguely.

She said nothing, waiting for him to go on, as he often had when he’d awakened from dreams of his tormented past. But a sudden uneasiness had descended upon him, as he said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He seemed almost unwilling to look at her as he lay down once more. She didn’t press him. She knew there were still some things he found difficult to speak of. Nick must have sensed that he was shutting her out, for he drew her close to him, and she gladly complied, silently comforting him with her light kisses.

But when she awoke to find him gone, she knew that more than a nightmare was troubling him. This was something real, something now. She found him downstairs, staring at the pre-dawn sky. She whispered a silent prayer that there was no bottle in his hand.

“Nick,” she said gently, “I think maybe we’d better talk about it.”

She’d anticipated resistance, even anger that she was pushing him. But she hadn’t expected him to turn to her with tears in his eyes. “I can’t, Nat,” he whispered. There are some things...I’m afraid to tell you. Afraid of what you might think of me.”

“Haven’t we gotten way past that?” she said softly, taking his hand.

He nodded, taking her into his arms. For a long time he held her tightly, and it occurred to her that he was afraid of much more than what she might think of him. “Nick, please tell me...”

He looked at her with an almost timid fright. “Natalie, I need to know something...about my condition. You said it’s a retrovirus--”

“It behaves like a retrovirus,” she corrected. “You know it’s not that cut and dry; there’s a lot we don’t know--”

“But when I was...human. When we made love...when you...conceived this baby...was I cured?”

“Nick, where’s this coming from? Of course you were cured...otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant...”

“Are you sure? The vampirism was gone? Not in my blood?”

She didn’t like the desperation in his voice. “Well, it must have still been in your blood...because it came back...but it was dormant--”

Sudden panic crossed his face. “Dormant? But doesn’t that mean it was still in my genes? My DNA?--”

Natalie could feel her heart beginning to pound. “Nick, you’re scaring me now. Why all this concern? I’ve been to the doctor, I saw the embryonic sac on the ultrasound. The baby is *growing*, developing. It’s human. It couldn’t do that if it were a vampire--”

He took a deep breath, as if some horrible fear had been confirmed. “Not a vampire,” he said dully. “A dhampir.”

“What?”

He took her hand, and led her to the couch, as if he had something awful to tell her. And Natalie didn’t know why, but she was suddenly terrified.

“Part-human. Part-vampire,” he explained. “With the heightened senses of a vampire...but without the curse of having to live off blood. Because of their dual nature, they’re attuned to vampires. They can sense us. But they have a natural aversion to us. That makes them hunters. And as such, a danger to us. Our aversion to them is just as deep as our hunger for blood. They hunt because they too are hunted. By every vampire who can sense them--”

“Nick, this has nothing to do with our child,” she broke in, trying to dismiss what he was telling her with every ounce of logic she could muster. “You can’t pass down a retrovirus through your genes. A man with HIV doesn’t pass it to his children, unless he infects the mother, and even then a baby wouldn’t contract it in utero, only during childbirth, from the blood, or through breastfeeding....”

She was rambling, and she knew it, but it was all too frightening to even contemplate. “And look, I’m fine,” she told him, trying to prove it to herself as much as to him. “You didn’t bring me across by making love to me...there’s no way the baby could--”

“But are you sure, Nat?” he asked desperately. “There’s no way...medically...that this could be passed down...?”

“Oh, God,” she sighed, covering her face with her hands, trying to think.

“Are you sure?” he whispered again, taking her hands into his own, and looking into her eyes. “Are you really sure?” He needed to hear that she was.

But when she looked back at him it was with a doubt that she could not obscure. “The only way,” she began, “would be if the retrovirus were present in your primary spermatocytes...which is unlikely...especially because it was dormant...”

“Is there a way to check...to find out for certain?”

She hesitated. This couldn’t be happening. “Nick, maybe it’s just a legend--”

“It’s not,” he broke in quickly.

She didn’t dare ask for details right now. “It doesn’t matter. You were human. It was dormant. The chances are so minuscule...”

“Natalie, we have to know for sure. If our child is a dhampir....” His voice drifted off. But he didn’t have to finish. He didn’t have to tell her the danger. She knew.

“Okay. We could perform a test. To see if your gametes are infected.” She paused. “But it wouldn’t be accurate because we wouldn’t be testing you under the same conditions. It’s not dormant right now. The only way to really know--”

This time it was she who didn’t have to finish her thought. He knew.

“I’d have to take the leitovuterine again.”

She nodded. They had spoken of it. Discussed the possibility of using the drug from time to time to allow him even a momentary respite from his vampiric state, an occasional indulgence in humanity. Yet they’d decided against it, afraid of the side effects as his body grew accustomed to it, and the retrovirus mutated to stay alive. Natalie knew that the real reason Nick had rejected the idea had been the disappointment, the pain of regaining his humanity only to lose it at any moment. It wasn’t something he’d wanted to put himself, or her, through again.

But the stakes were different now. “I want to do it, Nat. We have to know.”

She nodded. She knew in her heart they did have to know.

But she didn’t want to. God, she didn’t want to.

There was no joy this time as he went through the transformation--just the urgency of the tests to be done, the truth that they would have to deal with. And not knowing how long it would last this time filled each moment with apprehension. He hadn’t even tried to make love to her, much as they longed to be together again as they had in Hawaii. He’d been too afraid that the beast would emerge. He wouldn’t risk her life. He wouldn’t risk their child’s.

They sat together now in the loft, waiting for morning, when she’d been able to schedule time on the University’s electron microscope. The tests would have to be precise--there was too much riding on the outcome. But the hours seemed like days, and an uncomfortable silence had fallen between them. What was there to say?

*A lot*, Natalie thought to herself. There had to be something he was keeping from her. She thought back to his nightmare, and his plea to LaCroix that he could not do it. Do what? What had he dreamed that had made him even consider that their baby might be....

“Nick, you knew a dhampir once, didn’t you?”

It was more of a statement than a question, and it shook the hell out of him. He looked down at the protein drink he’d been nursing for the past hour, avoiding her gaze, as he replied, “Yes.”

Well, at least he hadn’t said he didn’t want to talk about it.

He looked up, waiting for her to ask more, but this time she didn’t. She knew when to press him, and when not to. She could see that he realized now he could not avoid the topic any longer. He owed it to her,

“It was in Spain,” he began, “during the Inquisition. A vampire named Miguel had fallen in love with a mortal woman, Alicia, and they’d somehow managed to have a daughter....”

Natalie suppressed the urge to ask him how they had been able to overcome the....logistics....as he went on.

“She was a beautiful little girl named Milagros,” he commented wistfully, as if seeing her in his perfect memory.

“Miracle,” Natalie murmured, and he nodded sadly.

“With all the war and turmoil--King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had just unified the country--” he explained, “her birth had gone unnoticed.” His face grew dark. “Until she was about twelve. The Enforcers heard rumor of her existence....and sent LaCroix.”

He looked up at her. “Janette and I went along, of course, I honestly didn’t know what they would do with her. I thought maybe they would study her, or even try to bring her across...”
He took a deep breath. “Are you sure you want to hear the rest?”

She didn’t. But she knew she had to. “It’s okay,” she told him, knowing that this was difficult for him.

“We had only seen her from a distance. When LaCroix said that she had to be *destroyed*--that she was an *abomination*--Janette and I argued with him. He saw our compassion for her as a weakness. He told me that he’d thought that in almost three hundred years he’d taught me better.”

Nick looked into her eyes. “The one thing he hadn’t taught me was about the effect that a dhampir would have on us. The feeling of dread, of terror... We’d always kept our distance, but he never told us why.

“The next night, when LaCroix went out to feed, I went to Miguel’s family’s house. I wanted to warn them, hoping they could flee before LaCroix realized they were missing. And then Milagros came into the room.”

He paused as if wanting her to know without his having to say it.

She already did. “And you killed her,” she said slowly, reading the pain in his eyes.

He nodded. “I couldn’t help it, Natalie. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by fear. I didn’t know what was happening. It was as if I were being attacked, and yet all she did was come towards me. And I could see in her eyes that she knew what I was. That alone intensified my feeling of being...somehow threatened....” He shook his head as if unable to describe even now the intensity of emotion that had assaulted him.

“It wasn’t your fault, Nick,” she told him, taking his hand. “You had no way of knowing--”

“I should have, Nat!” he cried, obviously still not having been able to forgive himself despite five centuries that had passed.

“No, Nick,” she told him sternly. “He was your teacher, and he deliberately kept that from you, as he kept many things, just to have more power over you. He knew what would happen, and probably took some kind of sick delight in it.”

“I can still hear Alicia screaming,” he said wearily. “And I always will.”

She drew him near and he gladly fell into her embrace. And as she held him, her satisfaction that he had finally opened up to her was surpassed only by her new understanding of why he was so terrified for their unborn child. And the only thing that kept her from succumbing to that terror herself was the conviction that there was no way on Earth this could possibly ever happen to them.

Her hand was shaking as she took the slide from the microscope and involuntarily let it fall to the floor. The glass shattered, and with it her dreams.*

Natalie looked up at Steven, knowing that she had told him all she should. Enough to be honest with him, at last. He deserved that. What he didn’t deserve was to be hurt any more than he had been, and surely it would hurt him to know the details of what had followed. The heart-wrenching days of discussion and decisions, of desperate passion, the epilogue of her life with Nick, and prelude to her life without him. Natalie didn’t want Steven to know the depth of the wound that had never truly healed. She couldn’t bear for it to take away from the beautiful life that they had shared in the last ten years. She loved Steven, and until seeing the pain on his face as she had spoken of her past, perhaps she hadn’t even realized how deeply. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “This wasn’t something I should have kept from you.”

She could read in his face both the hurt and the anger he was trying to control as he said, “Natalie, I love you. You could have trusted me.”

“I do trust you, Steven,” she told him. “But I was afraid of what you’d think...Afraid...of losing you.”

He shook his head slowly and sighed. “Nat, you’re not going to lose me over this. If anything--”

His voice trailed off.

“What?” she pressed him.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just changes things, Nat.”

“Not between us,” she broke in, feeling her heart begin to sink. “Steven, please, just try to understand how difficult this has been for me. If I had told you this ten years ago, you would have thought I was crazy. I wanted to start a new life with you, a normal life. I didn’t want the past to interfere with that--”

“But it’s not in the past,” he reminded her. “If it were we wouldn’t have to leave town to keep Nicolette from being stalked by vampires! Did you think that would just go away, Natalie? Didn’t I have a right to know that this might happen?”

“Yes you did. You’re right,” she admitted guiltily. “I suppose Janette hit it on the head. She said that I must have thought that if I forgot about them, and lost myself in my mortal world, that it would never happen. I spent the first year after Niki was born virtually in hiding. And then, when nothing happened, I thought we were fairly safe. Oh, for years it still terrified me when I thought about it, but Steven, we’ve even run into people that I’m sure were vampires, and no one ever gave Niki a second glance.”

He raised his eyebrow at that, probably wondering how she knew. But she’d dealt with them enough to know the signs, and from time to time had passed by a face with that familiar pallor, expecting at any moment to see eyes turn to amber, and fangs protrude. But it had never happened. And Niki had passed for a normal child. Only now did she understand why.

“I began to think that Nick had been wrong. But now I see why we’ve been safe until now. Janette said it’s her age. Puberty must have something to do with it. I don’t think Nick knew that, because the dhampir he knew was Niki’s age. It explains a lot.”

Steven shook his head. “I don’t know, Nat. I’m a lawyer, not a doctor or an occultist. This is just too much to think about right now. All I know is that it changes everything I thought about Niki’s father. I could never understand how a man could abandon a woman carrying his child. I thought he must be some scumbag that had dumped you, or hurt you so badly that you’d left him. It didn’t matter to me, so I never questioned. I figured he was just part of your past. But that’s not the case. He *did* want you and the baby, and probably still does--”

“Steven, don’t do this--” she begged.

But now that it had sunk in, he could hide his anger, and his jealousy, no longer. “Nat, you didn’t leave him because you wanted to, and he didn’t want to let you go. When I met you, you were still in love with him--”

“Steven, please--”

“Nat...are you still in love with him now?” he challenged.

“I love *you*,” she told him, with tears in her eyes. It was the truth, but she had pointedly avoided answering his question, and he knew it.

“Nat, that’s not what I asked--” he said impatiently, as if she had silently given him the answer he dreaded most.

“But it’s the truth, and it’s what I need you to believe. Steven, what happened with Nick was a long time ago. And of course there are feelings that will always be there--he’s the father of my child. But so are you--”

“Oh, yeah, but it took five years before you would even consider having a baby with me, Natalie. Why was that? Were you still hoping that Nick would fly back into your life and take the two of you away?”

“No, and I don’t know how you could even think such a thing!” she cried in exasperation. “It was because that’s how long it took me to feel safe enough to have another child. When Niki was little, there was never a night when we took her outside that I didn’t look over my shoulder to see if someone was watching. Do you think I wanted to risk bringing another baby into a situation like that?! You have no idea what it was like, because I sheltered you from it!--”

“I didn’t want to be sheltered, Natalie. I wanted to share everything with you, good or bad. I wanted you to trust me enough to be honest with me!”

Natalie took a deep breath. She had been wrong, and she knew it. But how to convince him that she had only done it to hold on to all the happiness he’d given her? “Steven, in everything else I’ve always been honest with you. I love you and I do trust you, more than anyone else in the world. Maybe I was foolish thinking that if I ignored the situation it would go away, but I swear to you, I never wanted to hurt you. You gave me and my baby a whole new life, filled with hope. I loved you for that, and I love you now, more than you could ever imagine. Can’t you please believe that and forgive me for not telling you the truth about Nicolette? Can’t you see that I just didn’t want to ruin what we had?”

“Nat, I know your intentions were good--but I had a right to know what I was getting into!”

His words struck her like a slap in the face. “So then I was right, wasn’t I? You wouldn’t have stuck around if you had known about Nicolette!”

“I didn’t say that--” he argued.

“You didn’t have to, Steven,” she responded quietly.

For a long moment he stared at her, as if not knowing what to say. He had hurt her with that, and he knew it. But his own pain was greater than his need to reassure her. “If you loved me, you would have trusted me,” he said bitterly, then turned to leave.

She didn’t stop him. She didn’t have the strength to. Besides, she couldn’t blame him in the least if he never came back.

He had been watching, listening, observing with his preternatural senses. He’d followed them here and waited, perched above them, for something.

A dhampir! he should have known. Why else would she have left so suddenly, abandoned her life, her vampire love, her *Nicholas*. It all made sense now. And what opportune timing. Here he was, just as she seemed her most vulnerable.

Again.

He watched as her mortal husband stormed from the house, sat on the steps to their quaint little home, fuming in his anger and confusion. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? He was so weak, so pathetic, so....

...vulnerable....

For a long while, Natalie sat staring at the door that had slammed behind him. She wanted to go after him, beg him to come back, to forgive her for having kept him in the dark.

But she couldn’t. In all the years she’d imagined how to explain the complexity of her past, one thing had eluded her.

She could not justify what what she had done. Not to him, not to herself. And the must unnerving aspect of it all was that Steven’s words resounded in her head with a disturbing familiarity.

*If you loved me, you would trust me.*

How many times had she said just as much to Nick? Hadn’t she resented the things he’d kept from her simply because he’d been afraid of her reaction? True, Nick’s secrets had been far uglier, his deeds more horrible, more shameful. Yet how many times had she felt a wall between them just because he hadn’t seemed to trust her enough to love him in spite of his past?

She cringed too, at her own words. She had told Steven that she had sheltered him. Had *she* wanted Nick to protect *her* from the truth? No. Had she accepted that as a justification when he’d tried to make her forget meeting LaCroix at Azure?

Absolutely not. She had felt betrayed. And far from protecting her, she’d felt that Nick had foolishly put her in worse jeopardy by trying to take from her her knowledge that LaCroix was a threat to her.

*I had a right to know* she’d told him. He’d endangered her from the moment he’d told her that he loved her, by not letting her know that LaCroix had vowed to keep him from loving any mortal. Had Nick wanted to protect her? Had he really believed that it was even in his power to do so? Or had he carelessly risked her safety out of his own need for love and happiness?

These questions had plagued her for so long. And now, she realized, she had been just as guilty as Nick, where Steven, and even little Richie were concerned. Had she had the right to become involved with Steven, to bring Richard in to the world, knowing that she and Nicolette might forever be targets? Or had she ignored the peril in her own desperation for happiness?

She’d ignored it. As she’d ignored so much, overlooked so many things, where Nick was concerned. The danger of being with him, the times he’d lashed out at her, or gone to Janette in his frustration over their inability to be together. She’d pretended so much of it wasn’t there, or that she hadn’t cared, or been hurt by him over and over again. Yet always, in the end, she’d forgiven him. And she knew in her heart that she would have forgiven him almost anything, so great had been her love, so passionate her need for him.

And now it was she who had endangered those she loved. And in a small way, she understood what Nick must have gone through, and how his anguished loneliness and desire for love had often corrupted his better judgment. And again, she mentally forgave him, for the wrong decisions that he had made. Whatever he had done, he had really loved her. He’d never meant to hurt her. She’d always known that, but perhaps now she truly understood it.

If only Steven could be as forgiving...

She didn’t want to even think about the possibility of losing him, though she knew she very well might. And at once a deep foreboding overcame her.

He was outside, alone.

Suppose some vampire had followed them from Janette’s restaurant? There were many, she knew, who wouldn’t flinch at breaking their Code, especially if some mortal stood in the way of their real target...

Natalie looked out the window quickly, scanning for him in the darkness of the new moon. She’d thought she’d heard him go outside, but had been too lost in thought...”Steven,” she cried in a hushed whisper.

The only response was the touch of cool hands on her shoulder.

Natalie nearly jumped out of her skin, tensing, preparing for the worst. But as she swung around to face the intruder, her entire body nearly collapsed in relief.

“Whoa,” Steven said, grabbing her arms to steady her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Startle! What an understatement. She didn’t want to explain that the night air had cooled his hands so, that she’d thought he was...

It didn’t matter. She threw her arms around him, heedless of whether he was still angry or not. She was too glad just to see him. “Steven, I’m so sorry,” she whispered in his ear. “I was very wrong. Please, just forgive me and I promise there’ll be no more secrets, ever. I love you so much...” She kissed him deeply to show him. And when he responded with the same warmth as always, she said a silent prayer of thanks.

“I know you’ve been through a lot,” he said when they had separated. “And I can’t pretend that I don’t still wish you had confided in me. But I understand you had your reasons. I just want you to know one thing.” He put his hand to her cheek, caressing her as he told her tenderly, “Even if you had told me all this years ago--it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Not how I feel about you. I love you, Nat..” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “And I will until the day I die.”

“Oh, Steven,” she whispered as their lips met. And he led her into the bedroom, making her forget, even if only for a while, about vampires, dangers, and running away. And Natalie lost herself in him, in their love, as she had so many times before.

Outside, he watched, waited, remembering her scent, and the taste of the smooth satin of her neck. He *would* have her. Her body, her blood...her soul. And no one would be able to stop him this time. Not this weak human. And certainly not Nicholas.

Morning came, and with it the rude awakening of what had to be done today. Natalie would not let another night pass. Sundown was something she hoped never to see in this city again. She couldn’t risk Nicolette’s life by waiting even one more day.

Aristotle would have to be contacted. He’d promised years ago to arrange for another identity whenever she ‘d have to move again. Actually, he’d probably expected to hear from her long ago. But years of safety had made her careless, even to the point that she’d allowed Steven to persuade her to move from the small town where she’d hidden Niki to the city she knew must be full of vampires. She and Steven had both agreed, though, that this move would have to be a drastic one. they’d go far away, to another country perhaps. Though it made him uncomfortable, she’d told him of the money in the bank, and he’d agreed to leave everything of theirs behind so they could not be traced. All it would take now was a phone call.

But there was more urgent, personal business she’d have to attend to this morning.

She had to tell Nicolette the truth.

How would she react? A young girl who, ironically, had been fascinated by vampires in fiction and movies. She thought they were cool, even sexy. But to her they’d been no more than fictitious creatures, the stuff role playing games were made of . How would she feel to know that her father was one, that she herself was part-vampire?

Natalie had known this day would come, but she had dreaded it. Just as she’d dreaded telling Nick thirteen years ago that the tests had been positive, that their child would indeed be a dhampir...

*He’d insisted on coming with her to the University, but he’d had to wait outside the lab. Once she’d collected herself, she stepped through the door to be met by his questioning gaze...

But she did not need to respond. It was on her face, she knew, in the tears that were threatening to burst from her. She saw him visibly pale, his hands almost shaking as he reached out to her. She fell into his arms, still trying to hold back her emotions until they could be alone.

“Oh, Nat,” he said softly in a voice filled with anguish.

“Please, let’s just go home,” she whispered.

They’d rode silently back to the loft. Nick had driven with one hand, keeping his other arm around her to hold her close, as if not wanting her, for one moment, to think that she was alone. Once upstairs, Natalie could keep her emotions in check no longer. She collapsed into his embrace.

“Why, Nick, why?” she sobbed. “Why does everything have to be so hard for us?”

“I’m so sorry, Nat,” he responded, hugging her to him. “I should have known. I never should have--”

She looked up at him, suddenly angry. “Never should have what? Made love to me? Gotten me pregnant? Don’t you start pulling away from me Nick, not this time--”

“I’m not, Nat,” he promised, his voice choked with emotion. “I just hate to have caused you so much pain by involving you in my life. But I could never regret making love to you. Never!”

Natalie took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. The love in his eyes reassured her, but there was something else there, too--was it fear? “Okay,” she said steadily. “So what do we do now?”

“No one can know about this pregnancy,” he said darkly.

“I know, but in a couple of months I’ll begin to show--”

“You can’t stay here, Natalie.”

She looked at him, suddenly afraid of where this was going. “So we’ll go away,” she told him, ignoring the nagging dread. “Find someplace where there are no vampires.”

He shook his head dismally. “There is no place where there are no vampires, Natalie,” he said quietly.

She pulled away to look him in the eyes. “Then we’ll find a place...,” she said, beginning to panic.

“Nat--”

“Hey, you’ve got to help me out here, Nick,” she prodded him. “There’s got to be someplace we can go, something we can do...We can travel by day while you’re still on the leitovuterine, and then--”

“Nat.” His eyes were filling with tears.

“I’ll only take the baby out in the daytime, when it’s safe--”

Nick placed his hands on her arms. “Nat, listen to me!”

“No!” she cried. “You’re going to tell me there’s nothing we can do, and I won’t accept that!”

“Natalie, you do have to go away,” he said, choking on the words. “But I can’t go with you.”

She hadn’t expected that. Or maybe she had, but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge even the possibility. “Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere without you! we’re not going anywhere without you!” she yelled, her face hot with tears.

“Natalie, any vampire is a danger to that baby. And I am a vampire,” he said, measuring every word.

“But it’s your child! You couldn’t be a threat to your own child!”

“I wouldn’t want to be, Nat! But after what happened last time--”

“Nick, that was different! You didn’t know what to expect. This is our baby. I trust you...”

“I don’t trust myself,” he admitted with abhorrence for his own state.

“Nick, please, you can control it, just like you control your desire to take my blood. Please, don’t do this--” she begged.

“What about the baby? “ he asked, his voice betraying his inner torment. “Don’t you realize it will be born with a instinctual hatred and fear of all vampires, including me?”

Natalie could see what the thought of that did to him...the prospect of instilling loathing and fear in his own child. She threw her arms around his neck, holding him tightly. “We’ll work it out, Nick. I don’t know how, but we will,” she promised. “Just please, don’t do this to me. I need you so much. More than I’ve ever needed anyone. Please, don’t make me do this without you--” Her voice was lost in her grief, her words cut off by her own weeping. She was frantic now. This was worse than anything that could possibly happen to them.

“Natalie, my love,” he whispered in her ear. “I need you more than you could ever imagine. But I won’t risk your life, and the baby’s--”

“Nick,” she wept. She could barely speak.

“You’re forgetting something else,” he told her. “LaCroix. In eight hundred years, there has been no place on this earth that I could go without his finding me. Without the Enforcers knowing my every move. If we went away together, how long before they found us?”

“You could protect us,” she said weakly, though she knew it was placing more confidence in his ability to do so than she realistically could.

“Not against them,” he said, his voice breaking with his heart. “And once they found the baby, they could take him...kill him...or worse.”

“No,” she sobbed. “No...”

For a long time they held each other, their tears intermingling, their lips meeting for tender kisses. But the emotional strain was too unbearable in her present state, and Natalie felt as if she would pass out. He carried her up to the bedroom, lying her down gently, settling next to her to hold her in his arms. And for hours they lay there, their bodies entwined, speaking softly of all the possibilities, the implications....discussing, searching, becoming resigned to the inevitable. Together they cried, holding each other, seeking comfort where none could be found. And by morning, they both knew there was no hope, no magical solution. Natalie had succeeded in convincing him that his fear of harming the child was irrational But the fact that his mere presence would always pose a threat, attracting those who would seek to harm their child, was undeniable. How could Nick suddenly find a way to do something he’d been unable to do in eight centuries?

“If you could become human, then they wouldn’t be able to track you down. Your bond with LaCroix would be broken,” she’d suggested, grasping at straws. But they both knew that the leitovuterine was not a cure, and with Natalie gone, his chances of finding a cure were near impossible.

At least, in *her* lifetime.

The sunlight peeking through the open shades was no comfort. Even his ability to feel the morning rays on his face was insignificant given the tragedy of their situation. His hopes of becoming human, of enjoying simple pleasures such as the dawn, had, in the last few years, been inextricably intertwined with his desire to share these things with Natalie. Soon, their life together would be over. It was more than either of them could bear.

Natalie lay against his chest, her eyes closed, as he stoked her hair. A silence had fallen between them now, as they’d exhausted their possibilities and themselves. She had no tears left. Her emotion, her energy, was spent. All she wanted to do was stay right here with him like this, and pretend that she would never have to break away. That fantasy was all that was keeping her from falling apart right now.

“Nat, honey, you must be so tired, “ he said softly with concern. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

“I don’t want to sleep. I just want you to hold me,” she said, cuddling against him as if to keep him there.

“Is there anything I can get you? Food? A drink?”

She looked up at him. “There’s only one thing I want right now,” she said. “Make love to me, Nick. Please.”

She could see the desire in his eyes that matched her own. But he hesitated. “Nat, what if the leitovuterine wears off...?” he began.

“What if this is our last time?” she countered.

It was an argument he couldn’t refuse. Or didn’t want to. Slowly he began to kiss her, tenderly at first, then more insistently. Hungrily she responded, his touch bringing back the life that had been drained from her tonight. It had been so long since they’d been together like this. Hawaii seemed light years away, and so far into the past, that tonight was as exciting as if it were the first time. Natalie gasped as his hands reached under her bra, cupping her breasts, rubbing, fondling, and finally exposing them to his hungry mouth. She closed her eyes, relishing every moment of his exploration as his hands gently worked their way down her body, his lips following not far behind. With a desperate passion he seemed to want to touch and taste every inch of her, commit every sensation to memory, as if this moment would have to last them a lifetime.

It would.

Each caress of his fingers, the teasing of his tongue, the grazing of his stubble against the most sensitive parts of her, sent wave after wave of arousal through her being. She wanted him so badly, yet she didn’t want this to end. No one had ever made her feel like this; no one else ever could. The agony of their wretched fate suddenly threatened to engulf her. She struggled against it, losing herself instead in the overwhelming love she could feel in his every touch, in his desire to bring her joy just one last time.

With no less desperation than his own, Natalie reached for him, freeing him from his clothes, running her hands over the perfect body that she loved so much. And now it was her turn to touch him, taste him, tempt him as close to the brink of ecstasy as possible without letting their moment end too soon. “Oh God, Nat...” he moaned in pleasure. “Please don’t let this end...”

She wouldn’t. At least not before she had one final chance to melt away eight centuries of loneliness, to show him how much she loved him. No matter what happened to them now, he must walk away knowing that she’d never regretted giving herself to him, body, heart and soul. If she could bring him just a few last moments of joy...

Suddenly he was bringing her gently back up to face him, kissing her tenderly, his blue eyes glowing with his love for her. Natalie lay back in anticipation as he brought his lips to hers, then lowered himself on top of her. She gasped as their bodies melded into one, reminding her how only he could complete her, and without him she would be empty forever...

Together the shared the beautiful sensation of climbing to the pinnacle of joy. Then, as they lay together, still joined as one, Natalie could not help but feel that somehow destiny once more would smile in their favor someday.

It had to. Because without each other, neither of them would ever be the same again.*

She hadn’t been the same, Natalie admitted to herself, even if she could confess it to no one else. She loved Steven. Of that there was no doubt. And Nicolette and Richard meant everything to her. She would die for them. Yet a part of herself had been left in Toronto. And it broke her heart now that she knew that Nick, too, had been lost, that he suffered still, without even the joy of knowing about the beautiful daughter he had fathered. Natalie was secretly glad that Janette had seen Nicolette, in spite of the way last night had disrupted their lives. At least she would tell him, and he would know. And then, maybe, he could find some peace.

The thought crossed her mind that it would hurt him to know that she had married. She couldn’t bear to cause him any more pain. She didn’t want him to think that she had forgotten, or stopped loving him. But perhaps it would give him the impetus to get on with his own life. She had had to.

Steven was in the shower, and she rose, wanting to check on Niki and Richie, although sunrise gave them some modicum of security. She smiled to hear them laughing and shouting outside in the back yard; Niki always took her brother for an early morning swim in their pool, as much as it made Natalie a nervous wreck. But her daughter was on a swim team, and had taught Richie to dog paddle when he was a year old. Finally, Natalie had relented and said she could take Richie in the water as long as she watched him every minute.

Suddenly a scream that had nothing to do with playing. Natalie ran to the back door to find Richie running frantically to the house.

“Mommy! Mommy! It’s Niki!”

She ran past him to the pool, where Nicolette was barely hanging onto the side to keep herself afloat. Her face was buried in her arms and she was screaming wildly. “Mommy! Daddy! I can’t see! I can’t see!”

Natalie jumped into the water, coming up behind her daughter to put her arms around her waist. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m here!” she said, as Nicolette spun around to throw her arms around Natalie’s neck.

“Mommy, help me!” she cried. “Help me, please!”

And as she looked up at her mother, unseeing, Natalie took in a breath.

For Nicolette’s beautiful blue eyes were a shimmering amber.

*She’d awoken to find Nick gone from their bed. And as reality came flooding back to her, Natalie knew that she didn’t want to be alone. She needed to hold him, to be held. Where had he gone?

Hesitantly she walked downstairs, almost afraid of what she would find. He stood by the window, his back to her. The shades were drawn closed and she knew...

He turned as he sensed her, his eyes glowing amber, defeat on his face, a bottle of cow’s blood in his hand. In shame, he put the bottle down. “Nat, I’m sorry. I woke up and knew it was back. I didn’t want to take a chance that I might hurt you...”

His voice trailed off as unafraid she put her arms around him.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“It’s okay,” she told him.

His will to control himself in front of her had brought the blue back to his eyes. “You were right,” he said in a hushed whisper, his voice choked with emotion. “It was the last time.”

And she kissed him, heedless of the blood that still lingered on his lips....*

How much Nicolette had looked like him at that moment! With her eyes aglow, her face filled with anguish....suffering Natalie had wished never to see in her child. Natalie had carried her back to the house, had lain her on their bed, and made a quick examination. The glowing eyes, momentarily blinded by intense sunlight, increased body temperature, sudden dehydration, sun-burnt skin...all symptoms Nick had displayed. Photosensitivity...but nothing else. No fangs suddenly sprouting, no desire for blood. Nick had warned her this might be the case, but it was the first time Niki had ever shown sensitivity to light.

She’d had Steven bring Niki lots of water to drink and aloe gel for her skin, and instructed him to close all the shades in their room. Then, she’d gone about the task of calming her daughter, not to mention her husband and son, who were absolutely frantic with worry.

“Sweetie, can you see me a little better now?” she asked Niki, holding her hand tightly.

Nicolette struggled, but breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah. A little. You’re blurry, but....” She smiled as she looked to the side of the bed. “Yeah, and I see Daddy and the squirt too.”

“Thank God,” Natalie said softly, then turned to Steven and Richie. “She’ll be okay. It’s just a little photosensitivity. The sun made her get too hot,” she explained for her little boy to understand.

“But her eyes...” he began, still afraid.

“That happens sometimes when you get a fever,” she lied a little too easily for Steven’s comfort. She gave her son a hug. “I promise she’s going to be all right.” She looked up at Steven and a silent understanding passed between them.

He picked up his son. “Hey, why don’t we let Niki rest, and you and I can go out to breakfast. Sound like a good idea?”

The boy’s face lit up. “McDonald’s?”

“Sure.” Steven bent down to kiss his daughter’s cheek. “Is that okay with you, baby doll? I think you and Mom have some things to talk about.”

Niki nodded, knowing precisely what her mother had promised to discuss today. She smiled at Steven. “Okay, Daddy. But you owe me dinner, okay? And no fast food for me!”

“You got it,” he promised, then bent down to kiss Natalie on the lips. “I’ll call first, okay?” he said almost inaudibly.

She nodded, smiling her thanks, then kissing Richard good-bye.

When they had gone, Niki looked at her with a frightened expression. “I know you made it sound like nothing so Richie wouldn’t be scared. But this isn’t normal. John’s little sister is photosensitive, or whatever it’s called, because she has spina bifida. And nothing like this ever happens to her.” She held out her arms. “Look, Mom, I’m burnt like I was out in the sun for a week! And Richie said my eyes were yellow! What’s wrong with me?”

“Honey, don’t be afraid,” Natalie said in a soothing voice. “I promise it’s nothing serious. From now on you may just have to wear sunglasses and sunblock when it’s sunny out. But it won’t get any worse than this...”

“But how do you know?” she asked, still nearly frantic. “What is it? How did I get it?”

` Natalie took a deep breath. “It’s a condition you inherited...from your father.”

Nicolette’s eyes opened wide. “This happened to him?”

Natalie nodded. “But his is much worse. He can’t go out into the daylight at all.”

Her daughter hesitated as if not sure what to ask next. Finally, in a voice that reminded Natalie so much of her own, she said, “I think it’s about time you told me all about him.”

Where to begin? The beginning.

“Remember I told you that I used to be a coroner?”

The girl made a face. “Yeah. Yuck. Dead bodies. Like that really old show *Quincy* you watch all the time.”

Natalie shifted on the bed to sit next to her daughter. “Well, one night, on my twenty-eighth birthday, they brought in a body that had been in an explosion. They said there wasn’t much left of his face, but when I looked at him, he looked like he’d barely cut himself shaving. And then, an amazing thing happened. He got off the gurney and was alive!”

“Get outta town!” Niki replied, using the antiquated expression she’d picked up from her mother. “Then, he really wasn’t dead to begin with--”

“Oh, yeah. He was. But his wounds healed.”

“How?”

Natalie hesitated. “Now Niki, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I swear to you it’s the truth. I’ll answer any questions you have, but you have to believe me.”

“I will, Mommy,” she said in a small voice, almost afraid to hear it.

“Niki, your father was--is--a vampire.”

“No way...” she said slowly in shocked disbelief. “But you always said they’re just make believe....I thought--”

“I thought they were too,” she admitted. “Until I met him.”

“And he--kills people--like LeStat?”

God, this was a hard question. “He used to. For seven hundred years. But then he felt bad because he knew it was wrong. So he stopped. And he began to drink animal blood--cow’s blood--because he still needed it to live. ..”

“So he wasn’t like LeStat,” she concluded. “More like Louis. He didn’t want to be a vampire.”

Natalie smiled. Thank goodness for Anne Rice. “No, and I offered to help him. We became very good friends. And over the years....we fell in love.”

“Tell me all about him, Mommy,” Nicolette pleaded with a mixture of fascination and sadness. “And tell me why you couldn’t stay together.”

So she did. From the beginning. And in two hours she retold their tale--all of it--just as she had told Steven. But no, it was different now. With Steven she’d had to obscure the full extent of her love for Nick, the hundreds and thousands of memories that still warmed her heart. But this was Nick’s daughter. She deserved to know it all, and to know how much her parents had loved each other and wanted to be together. How much they’d wanted *her*.

Nicolette listened, enraptured, interjecting questions that alternately brought Natalie tears of sweet remembrance and sorrow, as she relived her relationship with Nick, uncertain beginnings to bittersweet end. And Nicolette’s reaction ranged from excitement to sadness, from sympathy to fear, as she came to comprehend the burden her mother had carried.

“Do you have a picture of him I could see?” she dared at one point.

Natalie smiled and nodded as she silently went to dig out a small photo album from her closet, one of the few things she had taken with her when she’d left Toronto. She brought it back to the bed, and Nicolette snuggled next to her to see.

The girl’s eyes opened wide at the first shot--Nick and Nat together at the Department picnic, perhaps two years after she’d met him. She and Schanke had convinced him to come down at sundown. Natalie still remembered her excitement at seeing him arrive, the warm sensation as he’d come over to her, big smile on his face, sat down and started rubbing her calves affectionately. How much any physical contact at all had meant to her back then!

”He was gorgeous,” Nicolette exclaimed in surprise. Not what she’d expected a real creature of the night to look like, movies notwithstanding.

“Uh, yeah,” she agreed.

“And Mom, you look so pretty! How old were you here?”

“Thirty,” she replied, it suddenly hitting her. “Oh my God, I’ve aged fifteen years since then,” she said dully. Nick, on the other hand wouldn’t have aged a day.

“It’s okay, Mom. You’re still just as pretty,” Niki replied, sensing her mother’s insecurity. Natalie smiled and gave her a hug. “Thank you , sweetie. It’s just that I was realizing that *he* must still look the same.”

“That’s unbelievable,” she responded, looking over the rest of the photos. Suddenly she sobered. “So, it’s because I’m a...dhampir...that we had to go in hiding.” She looked up at Natalie sadly. “You two looked so happy...and in love...it must have been really hard to leave him!”

Natalie took in a deep breath, tears filling her eyes. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

*She stood at the foot of the bed, where he sat in perfect silence, his arms wrapped about her lower body, his head nestled against her growing abdomen, listening...

“I can hear its heartbeat,” he whispered to her in wonder. “Not just sense it, but hear it...”

They stood there for a long moment, Nick listening to the child he would never know, Natalie running her fingers through his hair, trying to savor the closest they would ever come to being a family. Finally, with a light kiss to her belly, he brought himself up to meet her. His eyes were filled with blood tears. “Oh, Nat...”

He crushed his lips against hers, and she kissed him deeply, neither of them really heeding the threat that his beast might emerge. He finally pulled away, his eyes amber, his face filled with anguish that mirrored her own. Reluctantly, he let go her hand, if only to calm himself and his need for her.

Natalie wiped the tears from her cheeks, resisting her own urge to run back into his arms. She fumbled with her pocketbook, checking to see if she had everything--wallet, makeup, a small photo album she would not leave behind. Aristotle would provide the rest when he arrived. She was permitted nothing else that might link her to her past.

She felt him come up behind her, wrap his arms around her waist, rest his head on her shoulder. “Nat, please,” he begged her.

“Nick, don’t make this harder,” she pleaded. She could barely hear her own voice. She turned to face him, his eyes their normal sky blue, his lips catching hers once more. They kissed passionately, their tears intermingling, then fell into a tight embrace.

“Nat, I won’t accept that l can never see you again...never see our baby...” he said softly in her ear. “Please, don’t do this...”

So much had changed in the past few weeks, as her impending departure had become a reality. Nick, who had been so sure of their course, could not bear to let her go. While Natalie, growing more protective of the life she could feel growing inside her, had become convinced that there was no other way. She had to safeguard their child at all costs--even if it meant leaving the man who meant more to her than life itself.

“Nick...” she began in despair.

“We’ll find another way. There’s got to be another way,” he cried desperately. But it was no use. He knew as well as she that they had considered every option. Only this path would secure the safety of their unborn baby.

He took her face into his hands, looking into her eyes. “Natalie, I love you. I need you.” The pain in his voice tore at her already breaking heart.

“Nick, our baby’s needs, its life, are more important than yours or mine,” she reminded him. “Please, don’t make this harder on me! Do you think I want to go? Do you think I want to...leave...*you*?” A new wave of tears burst from her, and he held her tightly as she sobbed in his arms.

“It’s okay,” he said tenderly. “I’m sorry, Nat...I’m so sorry...”

After a long while she separated from him, attempting a smile to show him that she was all right. He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, and gave her a light kiss.

“I, uh, have some things for you...” he managed, trying to keep his own control now, if only for her sake. He led her to the bed, where she sat beside him as he took two small boxes, and three envelopes, from his dresser drawer. He handed her the first, a small but thick manila envelope. She looked at him questioningly as she opened it to reveal a small fortune.

“That’s just some spending money to have on you,” he explained.

“*Spending* money? What am I buying, a car?” she replied. “Nick, I don’t need--”

“Nat, take it. You never know what you might need. It’s only fifty thousand dollars. I’ve also arranged for Aristotle to set up an account for you in your new name--he’ll give you all the papers--with ten million dollars--”

“Are you crazy? What do I need with ten million dollars?”

“Nat, I just want to make sure that you and the baby are comfortable, and taken care of. You’ll need things...a nice house...medical care...the baby’s education...” He put a finger on her lips to silence her protests. “Please Nat, if I can’t take care of you myself...this is all I can do. And if there’s anything left, it will be for him, or her, later on...”

Her first thought was that the baby needed its father, not his money, but she would never say that. Her bitterness was at their situation, not at him, and he was hurting enough.

“Okay,” she said, putting the envelope into her bag. “Thank you.”

“I’ve also told Aristotle that if you ever need anything,” he added, “--if you’re in trouble, or you need help of any kind--you should call him, and he’ll contact me immediately, wherever I am. Okay?”

She nodded. “Do you think you’ll stay here long?”

Somehow it was less frightening knowing where he would be.

“There’s nothing for me here now,” he said grimly. “But I’ll stay for a year. Just in case you want to reach me. After that, Aristotle said he would get a message to me. He’ll always know where to find me.” He paused. “But you’ll have to contact me. Once, you’re hidden away, he won’t let me know where you are. That’s the way it works. It’s safer for you and the baby that way.”

She could see him hesitate a moment as if trying to control his grief once more. He obviously had more business to take care of, and wanted to stay in that mode. He reached for a second envelope, and a small box.

“This is for the baby,” he said. “This is a letter, for when he’s older. Just some things...I wanted him to know...”

She squeezed his hand as he gave it to her. How difficult this must be! At least she would have their child. He would have nothing but his memories and his pain.

“Him...or her...” she reminded him softly with a smile. “I still think it’s going to be a girl...”

“Then I hope she’s as beautiful as you,” he responded, looking into her eyes with the only smile she’d seen in weeks.

He opened one of the small boxes. “This is for him...or her,” he added with a twinkle in his eye. “The only thing I have left from my family. My father gave it to me before I went to the Crusades. It was the last time I saw him before he died.”

The heirloom he held out to her was a large gold ring, with a blood red ruby inset in the shape of a cross. On the side was a family crest, and the name “Brabant”.

“I don’t wear it for obvious reasons,” he said, not looking directly at the cross. “But dhampirs aren’t affected by holy relics...”

“Nick, it’s beautiful,” she said in awe. “It’ll mean a lot to your son or daughter. I know it will.”

“I hope so,” he sighed. “And I hope between my letter...and whatever you tell him...he’ll understand. Not feel like I...” His voice trailed off.

“This baby will know how much you loved him...” she promised. “Enough to stay away just to protect him...”

“Or her...” he murmured softly. He smiled, then reached for the other envelope. “Oh, and I almost forgot...I think this is for you.”

She was about to open it, but he stopped her. “No, read this after the baby’s born.”

She nodded, slipping it into her bag with the baby’s present and letter.

He handed her the box. “*This* you can open now.”

She pulled away the silver wrapping paper to reveal a velvet ring box. She hesitated a moment, not knowing if she had the strength for this. He helped her, opening the cover to reveal a brilliant ring of teardrop-shaped diamonds.

“My God, Nick, this is beautiful... Thank you,” she whispered. She had never seen so many diamonds in her life, at least not on one ring. The center stone had to be four karats, with four one-karat diamonds on either side.

“I had bought it originally as an engagement ring,” he explained, obviously pleased that she liked it. “But then...”

She knew. And she kissed him before he could say anything else.

“It’s engraved,” he told her after they had parted. And he held it sideways so that she could see. *I’ll love you forever, Nick*

Natalie’s lips parted, and she was speechless. He looked at her questioningly, and she reached into her bag to pull out the gift she had bought for him. Surprised, he opened it to find a thick gold band. Engraved inside, the words, *I’ll love you forever, Nat*.

“Thank you...” he managed. His voice was gone. Solemnly, he took her left hand, slipping on the diamond ring, then brushing his lips against her fingers. Natalie took his left hand, slipping her gift onto his ring finger, completing the ceremony. One last passionate kiss as the doorbell rang...

They walked hand in hand down the stairs, to find Aristotle already waiting. He gave Nick a silent nod, respecting the grief he could clearly see on their faces. He handed Natalie some papers--plane ticket, passport, driver’s license, bank book--looking at Nick sympathetically as he fought the urge to see the name.

“Ready?” he asked Natalie.

She nodded. As ready as she would ever be.

Nick bent down to pick up the carrying case where Sydney had been patiently waiting, and handed it to Aristotle. “Thank you,” he told him once more.

Aristotle nodded, taking the case from him. The elevator door slid open and he stepped inside to give them a last moment together.

Natalie turned to him, and suddenly began to feel all hell break loose inside of her. There was no need to control it anymore. No use. This was it.

Forever.

Their lips crushed together as they melded for one last time. Her face was hot with tears, and the coolness of his skin gave a soothing comfort she couldn’t let go. The eternity they seemed to hold each other--crying, kissing, with whispered, “I love you”s--ended too soon. Natalie stepped away knowing that if she waited any longer, she would never be able to let go.

“Nat...” his voice cracked as she stepped into the elevator.

“I love you,” she mouthed again as the door slammed shut between them.

The emotional force of it all nearly knocked her over. She stepped forward, reaching out as if she would open the door, go back to him for just one second more...

But Aristotle’s hand gently touched her arm, and she resisted.

She knew what she had to do. And she lightly placed her hand on her abdomen to remind herself why, and to draw strength.*

Nicolette’s face was wet with tears. “Mommy, that’s so sad,” she said in a small voice. “I-I didn’t know. You loved each other so much, and you had to go away because of me. It’s all my fault--”

Natalie didn’t like where this was going. This wasn’t what she’d wanted Nicolette to get out of her story. But unfortunately, their daughter shared Nick’s propensity for feeling guilt, accepting blame even when there was no blame to be had. “Sweetie, none of this is your fault--”

“It is! You’d still be together if it weren’t for me, wouldn’t you?”

Natalie wondered. She’d like to think so. But that wasn’t important right now. Nicolette’s feelings, her beliefs about herself and her role in all this, were.

“Niki, listen to me. Your father and I loved each other very much. And you came out of that love. We wanted you, and we made the only decison at the time that we could. We would have done anything to protect you. We still would. But that decision, and the responsibility, were ours. Not yours.”

Nicolette took a deep breath and nodded. “I understand. I just can’ thelp but think of how awful it must have been for you to leave him...and be alone when you had me...”

“Oh, Niki,” she said tenderly, hugging her. “But look what I ended up with--you! And then I met Daddy, and we had Richie. We’re doing okay, aren’t we? And even though we have to go away now, at least we have each other.”

“I know, Mom,” Niki said wistfully, looking her in the eyes. “But what about him? He lost you...and he doesn’t know anything about me. Don’t you think he’s awfully lonely?”

The momentary cheer fell from her face as Janette’s words came back to her. She didn’t want Niki to know how desolate Nick truly had become without them. “I’m sure it’s been very lonely for him,” she managed. “But Janette--the lady in the restaurant--is going to tell him that she saw us, and that we’re okay. And I’m sure he’ll be happy to know that.”

Nicolette hesitated, parting her lips as if to ask a question, then stopped. Natalie waited patiently, but when she didn’t voice her thought, asked, “Would you like to read your letter now? And have his present?”

Nicolette nodded, then questioned, “Have you read it? Do you know what it says?”

Natalie shook her head. “No, it’s yours. You can take it to your room and read it alone if you want.” Though she did want to see what Nick had written to his daughter!

She was glad when Nicolette asked her to read it with her, and they sat together as the girl gingerly opened the enveope that had been sealed thirteen years ago. She read aloud:

“To my beloved son or daughter,

If you are reading this now, it means that your mother thought you were old enough to know the truth: about me, what I am, and what you are. Please don’t be frightened. I know that you have the best of your mother in you, and all the good that she brought out in me. With her love and guidance, you will be just as strong as she is, and you will survive.

Each day, as I’ve listened to your heartbeat, and felt you growing inside your mother, my love for you has grown. I don’t know how I can bear to never see you. I’ll never see you born, watch your first steps, or hear your first words. I won’t be there to raise you, guide you, teach you all that I have learned in my eight hundred years. I won’t see the person you will become. And the thought of this is insufferable to me; just as unbearable as the thought of never seeing your beautiful mother again.

In eight centuries, I have never loved anyone as I love her. And your life is the miracle that our love created. I hope that you will understand why we had to be apart. I would give my life to protect the two of you. And I would die of loneliness rather than see any harm come to you. My only dream is that someday, we’ll find a way to be together. It’s that hope that will keep me going in the years to come.

Until that day, don’t be sad. I take comfort in knowing that you and your mother are safe and happy. That’s the most important thing. Please understand, and forgive me for not being there. My heart, and my soul, are with you both, always.

Love, your father,

Nicholas de Brabant Knight”

Nicolette’s voice had begun to crack with her own emotion as she’d read her father’s words; she finished in a whisper. Natalie held her daughter as she wept in her arms, trying desperately to control her own emotions. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s okay...”

Yet Niki’s reaction had left her with a horrible sense of deja vu. Twelve years ago, as she had lain in her hospital bed, Natalie had held her newborn infant in her arms, and sobbed softly as the words of his letter to her had gone through her mind...

*My beloved Natalie,

Even as I write this, you are preparing to go away. I know it’s a decision we both made, and I know it’s for the best. Yet I can’t bear the thought of losing you. And I can’t bear the thought that I will never see our baby...

By now, our child has been born. I wanted you to open this today so that in some small way I could be with you. This isn’t right, Nat. I should have been there, to hold your hand, to comfort you through the pain...to share in your joy. Today, you’ve made me the happiest man on Earth; you’ve given me the kind of immortality that surpasses any I’ve known. You’ve given me a miraculous gift I never dreamed possible. Yet without you, without our baby, I am desolate and alone.

Please, Natalie....I couldn’t convince you not to go. But perhaps by now you are feeling what I do. That this is wrong. That we belong together. That somehow we can find a way to protect our child without being apart like this. I love you so desperately, so passionately, as I have loved no other woman in eight hundred years. I don’t think I can go on without you. You changed me, Nat. You took a cold heart and warmed it with your love. Without you, I’m nothing. And the only thought that keeps me from walking into the sunlight is the hope that you will come back to me. That someday we can be together, and be a family...

I know that day will come. Please call me, Nat. Tell me that you’re all right. Tell me about my son or daughter. And tell me where you are. I’m lost without you, my love.

Nick”

She’d read it so many times, she knew it by heart. And she loved him so much, that she could die for want of him. Yet she hated him for torturing her like this when he knew that she’d only done what she’d had to, what he himself had convinced her she’d had to!

She’d almost called him. In her thirty hours of labor, she’d whispered his name over and over. It had taken all her resolve not to call him then, not to beg him to come to her, to be with her. The demarol had done little to ease the pain; it had merely sent her into a dreamland where she almost felt him there, until the next contraction would bring her back to reality.

She was alone. And as she’d seen couple after couple come into the labor room, she’d never felt so alone in her life.

Then, her daughter had finally come. Nicolette. She’d decided on the name long ago. But she’d never imagined that looking into the tiny face, she would see him, so much of him. And as she held her daughter now, she wept, for the father she would never know, and for the miracle that she was. And she knew that she couldn’t call him. Her mission in life was clear now. To protect this tiny wonder, this part of Nick that was hers no matter what....*

“Mom?”

Niki’s small voice brought her from her reverie.

“Yes, baby,” she said, giving her one final hug before they separated.

“Can I see...the ring?”

“It’s yours,” she told her as she got up to take it from her jewelry box. “When I knew you were going to be a girl, I bought this chain for you to wear it on.”

Nicolette looked at the antique ring in wonder, reading the name aloud. “Brabant. So that’s my real last name. My family name.” She undid the clasp on the thick gold chain, and Natalie helped her put it on. It was perfect. Nicolette smiled through her tears, then sobered. “He must be so lonely,” she said again.

Natalie nodded, Janette’s words haunting her.

“Do you think...I could ever meet him?” she asked timidly, as if afraid Natalie would get angry with her for saying it.

Natalie thought a moment before responding. She had known that this would come up, and it was a question she dreaded having to answer. “Right now, Niki, it wouldn’t be safe. But someday...I’m sure you can.”

She seemed satisfied with that. She sat for a moment, playing with the ring, looking at it as she formed her next question. “It would...probably hurt Daddy, though, wouldn’t it?”

Natalie knew it would disturb him, especially if Natalie had to see him as well; but Nicolette had a right to know her father if she wanted to. “Niki, if someday you were to meet your father, even have a relationship with him...Daddy would understand. As long as he knew you still loved *him* too.”

“Oh, I’ll always love Daddy,” she assured her quickly. “I just feel guilty that...I really want to meet him, Mom. He’s been so alone without us.” She paused, not knowing how to formulate what she was feeling, until she blurted, “He needs me to love *him*, too.” Then she added, “If that’s...uh...okay. I mean...”

“Niki, that’s perfectly okay,” Natalie promised her, taking her hands and squeezing them. “Nick is a wonderful man, and if you met him, you would love him. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You can love both of them at the same time.”

Her own words chilled her, because she wondered if she were talking about Nicolette....or herself. That was why Nicolette’s final question knocked her off guard.

“Mommy, do you still love him?”

She didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want Nicolette to think for one moment that this threatened the life they had. It didn’t. And yet, shouldn’t Nicolette know that she was the product of an enduring love, and not just some fancy of Natalie’s past? Natalie owed her the truth, for all that she had been deprived of. “Yes, Niki. I do. Very much,” she confided. And she held out her right hand for Niki to see.

And at once, Nicolette realized that the diamond ring her mother always wore was the very ring Nick had given her. Her mouth dropped open. “All these years you’ve been wearing that, I never knew...”

“Nobody does,” Natalie told her, and she took it off to let her daughter see the inscription inside. “When I got engaged to Daddy, I put it on my other hand.” She paused, collecting herself. “I just...couldn’t take it off.” And sensing her daughter’s mixed emotions on that one, she quickly added, “Niki, I do still love him. I don’t think I could ever stop. But that doesn’t take away from the love I feel for Daddy.”

Niki nodded her understanding as she handed her back the ring. “Did you tell Daddy the whole story?”

“Most of it. Not the last part, though. About the letters. And the presents. And not--”

“--not the way you still feel about him,” Nicolette guessed.

Nat’s face flushed. “Niki, I told you because I trust you, and because I want you to know that you came out of a very special love. But I don’t want your Daddy to be hurt. I love him very much, and he’s been so good to us. It doesn’t change the way I feel about him, and I don’t want him to feel bad and think that it does. He and Richie and you and I are a family. Nothing can change that.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Niki told her. “I understand. And I won’t say anything. I promise.” And she hugged her tightly to seal the secret that would be between them.

Just then, the phone rang. It was Steven, calling from the car on his cell phone.

“Is it okay to come home?” he asked.

“We’re waiting for you,” she said with emotion.

Nicolette gave her mother a kiss on the cheek and a smile as the front door opened, then slipped the Brabant family ring into her shirt. Close to her heart, but out of Steven’s view. Natalie followed her down the stairs, her heart warming as she saw Steven and Richie. The little boy ran into her arms and she picked him up, kissing him. And out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nicolette run to give Steven a big hug.

“Did you and your Mom have a nice talk?” he asked, looking over her shoulder into Natalie’s eyes.

“Uh-huh,” she said simply, then added, “I love you, Daddy.”

God, was that what Steven needed to hear! And at that moment, Natalie was so proud of her daughter, for the maturity and sensitivity that went way beyond her years. Steven squeezed her tightly before lettting her go to look into her eyes. ”And I love you, baby,” he said with tears in his eyes. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders, drawing in Natalie and Richie with the other. Natalie kissed him on the lips, and he responded with more passion than he normally did in front of the kids. “What do you say we get packed? This family’s got a big day ahead.”

The kids were told to each pack no more than a bag of their most important personal effects. They were busy doing just that while Natalie dug out the phone number she’d thought she wouldn’t have to use again.

Aristotle.

The phone rang a few times, and he tiredly answered.

“Aristotle, I’m sorry to wake you in the middle of the day, but this is an emergency. This is Natalie Lambert...”

She saw Steven raise an eyebrow. He’d never heard her real name. He came to sit beside her as she spoke.

“Oh, Natalie...Nick’s girlfriend. How are you? And the baby?”

Nat was glad Steven couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation. “We’re fine. My daughter is twelve years old now.”

“A daughter. What Nick wouldn’t give to hear that! He’s driven me crazy the last few years. He must have come in a couple of dozen times trying to find out where you were, asking if you’d been looking for him. The first time was about a week after you left. He said he’d changed his mind, and wanted to get in touch with you...but you know the rules...”

“I know,” she said sadly. “You did the right thing.” She was *very* glad Steven wasn’t hearing this.

“So what’s up now? You want me to get a message to him?”

“No,” she said quickly. “We need to get away. We’re right in the middle of Los Angeles, and made the mistake of walking right into--”

“Bad move, Nat. I told you to stay in the suburbs. L.A.‘s crawling with vampires. Believe me. I placed half of them there myself.” He paused. “So you need papers for you and the kid--”

“It’s not just us. I’ve got a husband and a four-year old son.” Aristotle paused and she felt almost guilty telling him this.

“Okay,” he said finally. “But I’ll need pictures. And I can’t get you out of there for another two days. At very least.”

“We don’t have two days,” she said, alarmed. “Someone could have followed us from the restaurant. I’m afraid to stay another night!”

“Natalie, it takes a while to set this up! You need new identities. That can’t be done overnight--”

“I’ll pay you whatever it takes,” she said desperately. “I’ve still got over nine million of Nick’s money--”

“It’s not the money,” he told her. “You know I don’t usually place humans. All I want is fifty thousand for pulling the papers through. I’m doing this as a favor to Nick...”

“Then you understand that if we’re not out of here, our daughter’s life is in danger,” she said matter-of-factly. “Please, Aristotle...” she begged.

Finally he relented. “Okay, look. I’m not far from you. If you get out of there by sundown, you can make it here by morning. I’ll have everything ready. Just bring pictures, and I’ll have you set up by tomorrow evening.”

Natalie heaved a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

He laughed. “No. Nick does.” Then he sobered. “Seriously, though, I won’t tell him I spoke to you if you don’t want me to. But I think he’d like to at least know about the kid.”

“We’ll talk about that tomorrow,” she said to let him know that she wasn’t free to speak.

Aristotle gave her the address, and she hung up, looking over at Steven who had been waiting patiently. She relayed the plan to him and he nodded.

“The sun goes down by eight. We’ll go for an early dinner, and be out of here before then.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I promised my daughter, remember?”

She smiled and kissed him, allowing herself to rest for a few long moments in his embrace. They had a lot to do. But as long as they were together, they could handle anything.

He would have no sleep today. Not even the now-empty flasks of blood at his bedside had brought him satisfaction. He didn’t want this bottled swill. He needed warmth, flesh, the sensation of his fangs piercing ivory skin, the scent of a woman’s fear and arousal as he drew her life essence into him, the exhiliration of feeling her thoughts, her agony, her memories, her desire, her terror...

He wanted *her*.

His perfect memory recalled the taste of her neck, the scent of her fear, the warmth of her skin. She had almost been his that night. His to ravage, to violate, to destroy...

...or make his immortal companion. He still could not say for certain what his intention had been, what he would have done. Yet her bravery, her strength, had impressed him as much as her beauty. Somehow, it would have been a waste to drain her, to leave an empty husk where all that vibrance had dwelled. He would have brought her across. He would have kept her for himself...

...had *he* not come to her rescue. But Nicholas was not here this time. .

He cursed himself for not destroying her insignificant mortal husband, her Steven, last night. But he had hesitated too long, and the moment had been lost. But then again, it hadn’t been for naught. He’d found a perverse pleasure in watching them together. It had incited him, aroused him, elicited desires for *more* than her blood.

He would have *that* too.

Natalie laughed to see Richie make a face at his first taste of sushi--then grab for another piece. He’d put way too much wasabi on the sliced tuna, and the hot spice had made him wince. But he loved it, just like Nicolette, who’d gotten to choose her favorite restaurant tonight. Things seemed so normal for them right now, despite the last twenty-four hours, and Natalie had finally begun to feel good again. Both Steven and Nicolette had digested her revelations with extraordinary ease, and it seemed that a family tragedy had been averted. Neither of them were angry at Natalie--on the contrary, she felt a real closeness with both of them, having once and for all confided in them what she should have long ago. And Nicolette and her Daddy, the only father she’d ever really known, were having more fun together than ever. Perhaps it was Steven’s relief that her feelings for him hadn’t changed; perhaps it was Nicolette’s desire to show him that they hadn’t. All Natalie knew was that they truly were a happy family. Maybe things weren’t as desperate as she’d thought...

And in their desire to forget about the difficult transition they were about to make, they all quite forgot that sundown was quickly approaching....

He watched with anticipation as the sun began to sink below the horizon, Venus brightly shining on its tail....

They pulled into the driveway as the sky began to grow darker. “Let’s get a move on, guys,” Natalie said with a sudden sense of foreboding. They’d packed before they’d left for dinner, and had only to grab their bags, freshen up and leave. But as night time quickly approached, Natalie cursed herself for being lulled into a false sense of security.

“Steven, let’s get out of here,” she said nervously as the kids headed upstairs to the bathrooms and to get their things.

“Nat, come here,” he said, holding his arms out to her.

She fell into them gladly.

“Calm down, baby,” he said tenderly. “I know this last day’s been rough, but we’re gonna be okay.”

“I love you,” she whispered in his ear. “Thank you for making this so much easier.”

He kissed her deeply, then looked into her eyes. “Thank *you*”

She smiled lightly. “For what? For screwing up your life with all the problems from my past?”

He shook his head. “No. For loving me. And trusting me. And giving me the best family a man could ever hope for. I love you, Nat....” And he kissed her again.

Reluctantly, they separated. “I’d better get my stuff,” she said, giving him one last hug. “I’ll be right down.”

Natalie grabbed her bag, nudged Richie along, and went to find Niki. The girl was having the hardest time fitting her most prized posessions into one tiny bag. “Niki, we’ll buy all new stuff,” she promised her. “The first thing we’ll do when we get settled is go shopping. Only bring what you packed, the stuff you can’t replace. Just hurry, please!“

Nicolette nodded, throwing her bag over her shoulder. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Natalie smiled, and turned to find her son....

Suddenly, glass breaking. A whisk of wind. Muffled voices. Steven shouting....

“Niki, get your brother and stay right here, no matter what!” Natalie cried as she ran down the stairs at the speed of light....

Her pounding heart rose into her throat, nearly strangling her. She tried to scream, but her voice was lost in her fear.

Her horror.

Her grief.

At the foot of the stairs, Steven lay still, pale as winter snow. His eyes, still open, transfixed in the terror and confusion of his last moments, were devoid of life.

“No...” she mouthed silently, as she knelt beside him. She felt in vain for the pulse that she knew wouldn’t be there, then with shaking hands closed his eyes, cradling his head in her arms. “Steven, “ she wept. And then, as the rage welled up inside her, her sob grew in intensity until it was a scream aimed at the heavens. “No...no...no...NO!”

She looked around, as fear for her children kicked in. Everything was a blur of tears. But she was still alone. At least, there was no one downstairs...

“Niki!” she cried. “Bring Richie and come down here! Now, baby, now!”

And she rose to meet them as they ran down, Nicolette holding her brother in her arms, her eyes opened wide as she saw Steven’s lifeless body. “Daddy!” she shrieked, and tried to rush to him. But Natalie held her back. She didn’t want them to see this. But she couldn’t leave them alone either. Someone could be stalking them right now, watching their every move...

“Mommy, what happened to Daddy?” Richie wailed in fear.

“What happened?!” Nicolette cried, while Richie began to howl.

“He’s gone,” Natalie sobbed, holding them tightly. “Daddy’s gone...”

For a long moment she clutched at them, as if afraid to let go. What was she going to do? Her maternal instinct told her to take them and run like hell. But whoever had done this could catch them if he wanted to. And she wouldn’t, she couldn’t, leave Steven like this....

She thought she would lose her mind. Only the two children in her arms snapped her into a temporary sense of reason. She had to think quickly. She needed help. This was one time she could not handle it on her own.

She released Niki, who’d fallen into a quiet state of shock. “Sweetie, get me the phone, please,” she told her. And as she held Richie in one arm, she reached with the other for her pocketbook that had fallen on the floor, fumbling for the number that she’d written down just in case....

She dialed, waiting impatiently as it rang and rang. She didn’t want to do this. It went against her grain. But she had nowhere to turn. And she had to seek out help before her sorrow immobilized her. If it hadn’t been for the children, it would have already. Finally, a woman’s voice answered.

“Janette...this is Natalie,” she said in a voice barely above a whimper. “I need your help...please...” And she broke down crying before she could hear the response.

Janette had heard the desperation in Natalie’s voice, and immediately thought the worst. No matter what competition she and Natalie had once shared over Nick, Janette had always admired the mortal woman for her courage, her strength. Janette feared to think of what could have caused her to so totally fall apart.

She’d managed to get their address, and had promised to be there at once. Grabbing the bottle she’d been about to open and throwing it into her deep coat pocket, she flew into the night.

Natalie put down the phone, still holding her son tightly in her arms as she sat at the foot of the steps, by Steven’s body. Nicolette was kneeling over him, still shaking his arm, listening to his heart, refusing to believe that he was dead.

“He’s gone, Niki,” her mother said gently.

“But why? What killed him? Who--?”

Suddenly she saw what Natalie had known was there. The tell-tale wounds on his neck.

A fury rose up in Nicolette that Natalie had never before seen. “It was one of *them*?!” she cried in disbelief. And in horror, Natalie watched as her daughter’s anger brought flecks of gold to her eyes.

But they were washed away in little girl tears, as a sudden, awful realization hit her. “Oh my God, this is all my fault...” she cried. “They were after me and they killed Daddy!”

“No, Niki,” Natalie told her as sternly as she could muster. “Baby, no, this isn’t your fault--”

“What if they come back?” she sobbed, looking around her, suddenly afraid. She moved closer to her mother. “Mommy, I’m scared!”

“It’ll be okay,” Natalie promised, drawing her near and kissing her cheek.

For a few moments she held them both close, drawing strength from them even in her need to comfort them. She tried desperately to concentrate on Nicolette and Richard, pointedly looking away from Steven’s still form. If she looked at him, saw him lying there, she would lose it again.

Richard suddenly pulled himself away from her, turning to run to his father’s body. It was as if the sight of Steven’s lifeless form, and the cries of his mother and sister, had not been enough. He had to see for himself. Natalie’s heart flew up to her throat once more as she watched her small son tugging frantically at his father’s arm. “Daddy, wake up. Wake up, please!”

She came up behind him, putting her arms around him, and whispereing in his ear, “Daddy can’t wake up, sweetie. He went away. He died...”

“No!” Richie wailed. He knew what death was. Natalie had explained it to him when they’d watched The Lion King, and Simba’s father had died. But to a four year old who’d never really known death, understanding conceptually and seeing your father lying dead before you were different matters entirely.

Richard buried himself in her arms once more, and she looked over to Nicolette, who was sitting silently on the foot of the stairs, staring at Steven as if in a daze. “What are we gonna do?” she asked in a tiny voice without even looking at her mother.

“Niki, listen to me. It’ll be okay. But I need your help. Get me my bag, please.”

Nicolette obeyed, picking up her mother’s pocketbook and handing it to her. Natalie searched through everything until she found it--

“A gun?” Nicolette’s mouth opened wide. “Where--?”

“Nick gave it to me,” she told her. “In case we’d ever have to protect ourselves against vampires.”

“But bullets can’t--”

“They’re wooden,” she explained, checking to make sure everything was intact. God, if only her hands would stop shaking. “Look, Niki, if anything ever happens to me, I want you to know how to use this. This is the safety--”

“Mommy--”

Natalie realized she was frightening her even more. “Niki, nothing’s going to happen to me. But I just want you to know how to protect yourself--”

A noise outside drew their attention. Someone was there. Nicolette hid behing her mother, and Natalie aimed the gun with a trembling hand as a figure plunged through the window....

Janette saw the shattered window and knew at once what must have happened. She didn’t bother with the door, flying through the broken glass.

She gasped as she saw them. Natalie’s husband, lifeless on the floor. And Natalie, shaking with fear, clutching at her children as she pointed a gun in expectation.

“Natalie, it’s me!”she cried.

She could see Natalie heave a visible sigh of relief as she slipped the gun back into her pocket. “It’s okay,” she told the children as she rose. “She’s our friend.”

“Oh Natalie, I’m so sorry,” Janette said with feeling, walking towards them. The agony on Natalie’s face was all too familiar, and brought Robert’s death, her own anguish, flooding back to her. Her heart could not help but go out to Natalie right now. She had lived htis herself, not long ago.

“Get away from her!”

Janette and Natalie both turned in shock to see Nicolette, her eyes blazing gold. She’d grabbed the gun from her mother’s pocket and was aiming it straight at Janette.

“Niki, no!” Natalie shouted. “Janette’s our friend; she’s here to help us!”

“Can’t you see she’s one of *them*?!” her daughter yelled frantically, her face hot with tears, waving the weapon in Janette’s direction. “How do you know she didn’t kill Daddy? She saw us last night at the restaurant! Maybe she’s here to kill us now!”

“Niki, it’s not true! Give me the gun, *right now*!”

No one had to tell Janette that the gun contained wooden bullets. She’d seen it in Nick’s apartment; he had kept it for protection against LaCroix long ago.. Janette knew it wouldn’t kill her, but she didn’t think Natalie was exactly in any condition to dig wooden fragments from her chest. She could easily swoop over and grab the gun from the girl, but she didn’t want to frighten her. And then there was that anxious feeling, that dread that the young dhampir seemed to instill in her. The mutual fear and distrust were instinctual. She’d have to resist it, overcome it, if she were to help them.

“Nicolette, listen to me,” she told the girl calmly. “Your mother is right. I am your friend, and I’m only here to help--”

“But you’re a vampire! Like the one that killed Daddy!”

“I’m a vampire like your father, and I’m his friend, as well as your mother’s. I wouldn’t hurt any of you,” she said steadily, stepping cautiously closer. “Nicolette, what you’re feeling right now is part of your nature. Your anger and grief has brought it out. You fear me because I’m a vampire; it’s your instinct. But I swear to you that I’m only here to help. Please, give your mother the gun.”

She didn’t try to hypnotize her. Nicolette was part-vampire, and as such, immune. But her soothing voice had convinced the girl, at least long enough for Natalie to take the gun from her and put it safely away.

“It’s okay, Niki,” her mother said tenderly, putting an arm around her and kissing her cheek. The gold had faded from her eyes, and Natalie eased her onto a couch next to her brother, who had been watching everything in silent terror. “Janette, I’m sorry,” she apologized, walking over to her.

“It’s all right; she can’t help it,” Janette said, touching her arm. “Natalie, we’ve got to get you all out of here. As soon as possible. Tonight.”

“No,” she whispered. “I want you to help him.”

Janette’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t expected this from Natalie, not in a million years.

Natalie made her meaning clear, measuring every word. “I want you to bring him across.”

She held her breath, waiting for Janette to respond. She had to understand! Hadn’t she tried to do the same for Robert? Hadn’t Nick brought her back across because he couldn’t bear to see her die? “Janette, please! You know what I’m feeling. I know you do. He doesn’t deserve to die! You’re the only one who can save him...” She was crying now, unabashed. She didn’t care. Janette had to help her. She had to bring him back!

Janette nodded slowly, as a look of empathy passed between them. Natalie watched as the vampire bent down to rest her hand on Steven’s still heart, closing her eyes to sense whatever life essence was left in him...

But there was none.

“It’s too late,” Janette said sadly, shaking her head. “Natalie, I’m sorry. But whoever did this, drained him completely.”

“You’ve got to do something!” she cried, her tears almost blinding her.

“Please, Janette, I’m begging you...”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, looking into Natalie’s devastated eyes. “I truly am. I know what you’re feeling, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“No...” she whispered,her eyes dropping down to Steven’s beautiful face, her hand brushing against his cheek. He was cold, so cold. Janette was only telling her what the doctor in her already knew, but the woman in her could not accept.

He was dead.

She bent down to kiss his lips. “Oh, Steven...” she sobbed. Her last hope of saving him was extinguished, and with it, all self-control. Janette was there; she would safeguard the kids. And Natalie gave in to her grief, weeping bitterly over her husband’s body. This was it. The end. She had fought tooth and nail, tried to be strong, to survive... But this was too much. Her strength was gone. Her resolve was gone.

Steven was gone.

How would she go on?

For what seemed like an eternity she cried, until there were no tears left to fall. Suddenly she was aware of a small hand on her shoulder.

“Mommy?”

She looked up into Richard’s frightened eyes, and wiped the last tears from her cheek as she rose to hug him tightly. She looked over to Nicolette, who joined in the embrace. And she knew that her own sorrow would have to wait. Her children, her only reason for going on now, needed her. She would grieve later.

She looked over Nicolette’s shoulder to Janette, who was waiting patiently, allowing them the time they needed as a family. “What now?” she asked quietly, quite willing to let Janette call the shots on this one.

“I’ve called a coroner--a friend--who will make sure no unpleasant questions are asked,” Janette replied.

How ironic, Natalie thought. How many deaths had she covered for the good of “the community”? But this went deeper than that, she knew. Keeping the cause of Steven’s death a secret from not just the human authorities, but the vampire ones as well, was the only way to guarantee Nicolette’s safety.

“Then we’ve got to find a safe way to get you out of here,” Janette added.

“I’ve already called Aristotle,” Natalie told her emotionlessly. “We were going to leave tonight.”

Janette was silent, taking in the tragic twist of fate and timing. Finally she said, “You still can. I can wait here until everything’s taken care of.”

Natalie shook her head. “No. I can’t leave him...like this. Not until he’s buried properly. I owe that much to him.” At Janette’s dubious expression, she asked, “Do you think I’m pressing my luck? Staying here any longer, I mean?”

Janette thought a moment before responding. “No. To be quite honest, Natalie, I don’t think this attack had anything to do with Nicolette.”

“Yes it did,” the girl told her, breaking into their conversation. “They were after me.”

“I don’t think so,” Janette told her. “If the Enforcers had been here, or anyone else out to get you...” She paused, trying to find a delicate way to say it. “I don’t think they would have stopped at your step-father.”

“Then who?” Natalie asked.

Janette shrugged. “I don’t know. Some renegade, perhaps. In any case, I understand why you want to stay. You can arrange for a wake tomorrow, and a funeral early Thursday morning. That way, you can escape by daylight on Thursday. In any case, I’ll stay with you until then,” she promised. “If it is some young renegade, then at least I can protect you.”

Nicolette looked up at her mother, obviously not certain if she would let a vampire stay under their roof. But Janette’s offer was more than generous--it would solve all Natalie’s problems. She could fulfill her obligations to Steven without worrying that she was endangering her children by doing so.

“Janette, thank you. I don’t know what to say.” Her gratitude was heartfelt.

Janette gave a slight smile. “Just say you have dark blinds somewhere in this house.” Her expression grew serious. “They will be here soon. You must get Nicolette upstairs, so that they don’t see her.”

“Won’t they sense her?” Natalie asked in sudden alarm.

“No. I didn’t until we were face to face. It’s not strong enough yet.”

The doorbell rang, shaking them all. Natalie motioned for Nicolette to take Richard upstairs, and waited until they were out of sight before opening the door. Suddenly a familiar scene was alive in her living room. Only the coroner was a young man who seemed older than his years and very pale...

Out of the corner of her eye she saw another young vampire arrive with two huge cartons for the coroner, out of which Janette discreetly slipped four wine bottles for herself....

Natalie watched as Steven’s body was neatly bagged and taken away. And she wondered how she had remained dispassionate all those years, examining dead bodies so clinically, almost forgetting that each one had left behind sorrow like hers. How many of them had been husbands, fathers, like Steven? How many had left behind a four year old son like Richard?

As if sensing her thoughts as they went up to check on the children, Janette said quietly, “You know, no four year old child should have memories of such horror...”

Natalie caught her meaning immediately, and nodded her permission.

Janette sat on the bed, looking into Richie’s sad eyes...

“What is she going to do to him?” Nicolette asked her mother, suddenly worried.

“It’s okay,” Natalie told her. “Just watch, sweetie.”

Janette gently touched his temple, her face reflecting all the pain she could sense in him. “You saw nothing tonight, Richie. You went to sleep, and when you woke up, your Mommy told you that your Daddy had died. He went away, Richie. He’s at peace. He is with God.”

Richie nodded slowly, closing his eyes. Janette lay his head on the pillow, covering him with the light blanket, and tucking him in.

Natalie sighed with tears of relief. “Thank you,” she said gratefully. He had lost his father. But at least he would be spared the trauma of all he had seen.

Nicolette just looked on in wonder.

Later, Janette sat alone in the family’s living room, where not long ago Steven’s dead body had lain. She’d gone through two bottles of blood, forcing herself to drink more than she desired. She needed her strength. If the deviant who had broken the Code in so irreverant a manner were to return, she’d have to be ready to fight him.

The evening had taken its toll on her. Her perfect vampiric memory would not allow her to forget Robert’s death. The details, the emotions, the anguish--each time she thought of it, she relived it. And seeing Natalie’s agony, and that of her children, had brought her own pain flooding back to her. She *had* to help them. Not just for Nicolas, or for the friendship she and Natalie had developed in spite of themselves over the years--but for herself. In easing Natalie’s suffering, perhaps she could ease her own.

She’d finally convinced Natalie to get some sleep after the children had both been put to bed. And now, as she sat watch over them, she knew there was one more thing she could do to end the suffering. For Natalie...and for Nick.

She picked up the phone. Natalie would likely be furious with her...but Janette knew that fate dictated no other course....

And Nicolas would find his first peace in thirteen years.

For that alone she had to do it.

He awoke from a nightmare he couldn’t remember, to find that night had long ago fallen. Night and day had become so confused in the last few years! Ever since he’d left Toronto for this secluded house deep in the Rockies, he’d spent most of his nights locked away from civilization. Only his need for blood had taken him into Denver from time to time. It was difficult to be around people; pleasantries and social interraction were necessities he’d rather not deal with. it was much easier to be alone.

If anything about his existence were easy these days.

Only the blood-induced stupor and sleep that followed allowed him any modicum of peace. Yet from time to time, even that would be disturbed by the dreams. Dreams of desire, longing, frustration, and fear. And he would awake, as he awkened almost every day, with that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, the anxiousness and depression that had plagued him for thirteen years, with the burning questions to which he might never know the answers.

Where was Natalie?

Where was their child?

He stumbled to the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of cow’s blood, and ripped the cork out with his mouth. And as he drank, it slowly satisfied the hunger for blood...

...but not the desire for answers. For *her*. That was a thirst he knew might never be assuaged. And the thought of an eternity without her, an eternity with this pain, was unbearable. Only the hope of seeing her again had kept him from ending his life. But he knew that as the years passed and the possibility became more remote, he would give in to his misery. He’d have to. He couldn’t go on with this much longer.

He lay back down, torturing himself once more with the memory. Their final days together. The taste of her lips, the scent of her skin, the sound of her voice. The beautiful sensations of their lovemaking. The completeness of being inside her warmth. The joy of holding her in his arms. The sound of their child’s heartbeat as he sensed it growing within her....

Saying good-bye. He had begged her not to go, though in his heart he knew it had been the only way. Yet despite all reason, he had still waited, hoping that she too would change her mind, throw logic to the wind, and come back to him. But he knew that if she had, their baby would have suffered. The thought of her safe somewhere today, with their child flourishing, was the only comfort he knew. For his heart, his very soul, had been ripped away from him on that day. And as he suffered her loss, grieved her even now, he knew with more certainty than ever that he had never loved anyone as he loved her.

His eyes snapped open and he went back to the refrigerator. The cow’s blood wasn’t doing it today. For some reason, the past two days had been more difficult than usual. Perhaps it was because he’d turned on the news yesterday, and seen the date. Natalie’s birthday. That alone brought a plethora of memories rushing back to him. The day they’d met, the day that had inexorably changed their lives forever. The day he’d hurt her, two years later, when he’d forgotten, when his insensitivity had pushed her into the arms of a man who had nearly killed her. How much he had hurt her over the years, with his inability to see what was happening between them, to accept it and work at it... His own fear of hurting her had injured her emotionally, as he’d avoided her, mistreated her...and gone to Janette in his frustration over not being able to have her. What a waste of precious time! If only he’d known how short their time would be...perhaps he would have lived to the fullest every moment he’d had with her.

Only the human blood would drown his regrets right now. And though he knew that no one had been murdered for this, he still felt a pang of guilt as he drank it down. But he’d discovered shortly after she’d gone from his life that he needed it, physically and emotionally, to survive...even if it undermined what she had tried to do with him for all those years....

*He barely moved from his chair as LaCroix walked towards him. He looked up only after his master had sat across from him, a concerned, though curious, expression on his face.

“Drowning our sorrows, are we Nicholas?” he asked knowingly.

Nick looked down. “Really, LaCroix, I’m not in the mood.”

“Actually, I was quite surprised to see that your doctor friend had left town. You seemed to be getting on so well together.”

Nick glared at him. “No thanks to you.”

“Oh, on the contrary, Nicholas. You owe me a great deal of gratitude. For releasing you of your vow to me...and permitting you to have your dalliance with your little mortal.”

“It was no dalliance,” he snapped. “I loved her. I *love* her as I’ve never loved any other woman.” It was pointless to hide that now. LaCroix was no longer a threat to Nat.

“I know,” LaCroix said with the slightest hint of compassion. “Why do you think I turned my back?”

Nick said nothing. He knew that LaCroix had had the power to take Natalie from him at any moment. And after that fateful night at Azure, he had pointedly avoided Natalie to keep up the charade of his indifference. But for whatever reason, LaCroix *had* let it be known that he’d known all along that Nick had lied through his teeth--but that he would interfere no more. It was the only thing that had given Nick the nerve to pursue his relationship with her once more. Yet he’d never understood the reason for LaCroix’s change of heart.

“I liked her actually,” LaCroix admitted, as if in answer to his question. “I *respected* her courage, her strength, her intelligence...and she was really quite beautiful. I knew you loved her...and despite your ridiculous quest to become mortal, she did make you happy. Besides,” he confided, “I did owe her a debt of gratitude for finding the cure to that plague that would have destroyed us all.“

Nick was silent, taken aback for a moment by LaCroix’s admission. It was more sincerity than he’d seen him display in quite some time. And he realized that what he’d always suspected was true. That although Nick had prevented LaCroix from bringing Fleur across, the love LaCroix had felt for her had softened his cold heart. He hadn’t killed Natalie that night, he’d let Nick off the hook, not because he believed that Nick didn’t love her, but because he believed that he did. And no need for revenge would bring him to senselessly destroy Nick’s happiness.

“Well, then I do thank you,” Nick said with the antagonism gone from his voice. “It was the only happiness I’ve known in eight hundred years.”

LaCroix regarded him for a moment as Nick took another gulp of the blood. Finally, he asked, “So why did she leave, Nicholas?”

Nick tried to hide his fear that LaCroix would guess the truth. He simply replied, “It was time...for her to go on with her life. I couldn’t give her what she needed.“

LaCroix did not seem satisfied at that, but pressed no further. Instead he reached for a bottle from his coat pocket. Nick didn’t have to ask what it was. He knew.

Human blood.

“A toast then to your new-found independence?” LaCroix suggested. When Nick hesitated he added, “Or perhaps just to east the pain?”

Nick nearly grabbed the bottle from him, and drank it down, relishing the taste and the momentary escape it provided...*

The escape had become far more fleeting. But it helped.

LaCroix had basically left him alone after that day. And when Nick had moved on, they’d gone their separate ways. LaCroix had found him, of course--he always did. But his visits were few and far between. And though from time to time, he’d berated Nick for his unwillingness to pull himself from his despair, he’d respected it for the most part, as well as his desire to be left to himself. Nick was glad though that he’d secretly purchased his latest bit of property. No one would be able to trace him there, and he could truly isolate himself from everyone and everything.

Only Aristotle would be told of his location. Just in case someday Natalie did try to find him...

Yet he’d come to think that that day might never come. And Aristotle was immovable as ever in his refusal to tell Nick where she was. In the beginning, he’d gone to him at least once a month, begging him for some information, anything that would help him find her. But Aristotle had characteristically refused, reminding him of the rules, and the fact that his silence and discretion were probably the only things that would keep Natalie, and her baby, safe. Nick had known this was true, but still called from time to time hoping that she had been trying to contact him. Aristotle had promised to call if she did. But that call had never come.

As if on cue, the phone rang, and he nearly jumped out of his skin as it broke his reverie. No one ever called him.

“Hello?”

“Oh Nicolas, thank goodness you’re there!”

“Janette?” he rarely heard from her, and the alarm in her voice worried him. “What is it? is somehting wrong?”

“You’ve got to come to L.A. right away,” she told him. “It’s Natalie.”

His entire body tensed. “Natalie?” he whispered. “You’ve seen her? Is she all right? Where is she?”

“She’s fine,” Janette assured him, then after a pause added, “And so is your daughter.”

Nick felt as if his heart had suddenly grown warm. “Daughter?” he asked with emotion in his voice. “Janette, you’ve met her?”

“She’s a lovely child, Nick,” she told him warmly. “And she looks just like you.”

He hesitated, taking this all in, then asked the inevitable. “Is she...a dhampir? Could you sense her?”
“Yes, “ Janette told him. “And so will every vampire in town if they don’t leave immediately. They need your help, Nick. I’m staying with them right now, to protect them, but she’s palnning on leaving town the day after tomorrow--”

“I’ll be right there,” he broke in, already throwing some things into a bag as he spoke to her. “Just tell me where you are.”

“Nick, listen to me. A lot has been going on here. Things I have to explain to you before you see her. She doesn’t even know I’m calling--”

“What’s going on, Janette?” he insisted, suddenly worried. “Are you sure they’re all right?”

“Yes, but they’re in danger. And I must speak to you before you see her.”

He knew it was pointless to push her for more information. “I can be there by morning,” he said.

“You’re travelling by day?” she asked in surprise.

But his plan was already taking shape. “I will be.”

She breathed deeply, as if trying to think. “All right, then come here between two and four in the afternoon. She’ll be out of the house then. We can speak before she gets home.”

He wrote down the address as she told it to him, and paused. “Janette, are you sure you can’t tell me more? Why doesn’t she know you’re calling me? Has something happened?” Couldn’t she hear his desperation?

“Nick, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. But I promise you, they’re both perfectly safe. Just get here between two and four, all right?”

“Okay,” he relented. He was anxious to get underway anyway. The sooner he left...the sooner he would see them. “Janette,” he said with feeling, “Thank you. Thank you so much. You don’t know what this--” his voice trailed off.

“Yes I do, Nicolas,” she said tenderly, “Take care, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He hung up the phone, paused a moment as his emotions overwhelmed him. He picked up the picture of her he alway kept by the bed, and tears of joy found their way to his eyes. “Not long now, my love,” he whispered. “And we’ll be together. Forever this time.”

He collected himself, and threw a few things into a bag. Change of clothes, wallet , cash, phone book, his silver pill box, some photos. He could leave everything else behind. Nothing else mattered right now. His future lie ahead. And with Natalie and his child--his daughter--in his future, he desired nothing more.

He hesitated, wondering if he should take a bottle of blood with him, then decided against it.

He wouldn’t be needing any more.

Janette hung up the phone, and sat deep in thought. She had done the right thing, she knew. Natalie and her children needed Nick, in more ways than one. But how would she tell Nick everyhting she must? That things between him and Natalie could not automatically go back to what they had been. That she had loved someone else, and that even though Steven was dead, Natalie would need time to heal. Patience was not one of Nick's greater virtues. He had longed for Natalie, dreamed about being with her again, for so long. Janette knew that he would be hurt to know that Natalie had gone on with her life. Eventually he would understand, and they would be able to move on. Janette was sure of that. But the beginning would be difficult. And she hated being the one to have to tell him.

But she had to. Just as she had to warn him that Nicolette might not be as thrilled to see him as he would her...

Suddenly, her senses were assaulted by a presence...and an inexplicable feeling of dread. Footsteps behind her... Janette started, and swung around.

...to see Nicolette standing behind her.

“I’m sorry,” the little girl stammered. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Janette heaved a sigh of relief and gave her a reassuring smile. “That’s all right. I’m just a bit jumpy tonight.” She sat on the couch. “Shouldn’t you be asleep? You’ve had a rough night. And tomorrow will be very tiring. You need your rest.”

Nicolette sighed. “I can’t sleep,” she said, and stood looking at Janette as if she had something to say but didn’t know how to begin.

“Would you like to sit down...and talk?” Janette asked, making a conscious effort to ignore the unpleasant sensation that the young girl’s nature, her very presence, incited in her.

“Do you mind?” she asked meekly. And in her innocence, in her blue eyes, Janette could see so much of Nick’s gentler side.

She smiled warmly. “Not at all, Nicolette.” She motioned for her to sit down. “Do you have something in particular on your mind? Any...questions?”

“A lot, actually,” she admitted after a moment. “But most of them are about things I don’t want to think about right now.”

Janette nodded her understanding. Under different circumstances, there were so many things she would want to tell this child--about her father, about her nature--but in the wake of her step-father’s death, none of these were things that should be addressed as yet. It didn’t seem appropriate. “When you’re ready,” Janette said simply.

“Thanks. I guess I really just wanted to say I’m sorry. For the gun. For being so nasty to you--”

“It’s all right. I understand. And there’s no need to apologize,” she said kindly. “You were in shock, and rightfully so. And if I were you, I would be angry too. I probably wouldn’t have acted any differently.”

“Really?”

“Niki, you’ve learned a lot of disturbing things in the past twenty-four hours--about your father, yourself, and what you are. And you’ve had a terrible tragedy. But your mother and father are both very strong, and so are you. And you will get through this.” Janette saw her lower her eyes at the mention of Nick, and decided it probably would have been best not to speak of him. But he would be there tomorrow, and she wanted to prepare his daughter for the meeting.

“Not all vampires are monsters, you know,” she said with meaning.

“Oh, I realize that,” Niki assured her, caught a bit off-guard by Janette’s candor. “That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. What you did for Richie...it was so compassionate. I realized then that you really just wanted to help us. And I felt really bad about the way I’d acted. I’m really sorry,” she said again. “I hope...we can become friends now.”

Janette squeezed her hand. “We already are.”

Nicolette smiled, visibly relieved. It was then that she noticed Janette’s glass. Janette had pointedly not drunk in front of her, but hadn’t had time to hide the bottle and wine glass. Nicolette made a face. “Is that blood?”

“Mixed with wine,” Janette told her matter-of-factly.

The girl crinkled up her nose in disgust. “Yuck. Where does it come from?”

“Oh, I have various sources. This is from a hospital. No one died for this, I assure you.” She took a sip from the glass. She might as well. Niki would see her father do it soon enough. Better she should be used to it.

Nicolette made a face but watched intently. Suddenly, her face paled as a thought occurred to her. “Janette, can I ask you something?’

“Whatever you want.”

“Do you...I mean have you...” She was too afraid to finish her thought aloud.

“Do I kill people for blood?” Janette voiced, making it easier for her. Nicolette nodded timidly and she replied, “No. Not any more. But have I in the past? Yes.” Damn Nicolas! His guilty conscience had rubbed off on her over the centuries, and for the first time, in front of Nick’s daughter, she felt ashamed to admit it.

Nicolette said nothing; instead she looked away towards the spot where Steven had been struck down.

“Nicolette, listen to me, “ Janette said, and the girl’s head snapped back to look at the her, her eyes filling with tears. “Vampires need blood to survive. But most of us find other ways to obtain it. The vampire who killed your step-father was not one of the Community here. This wasn’t an act of hunger or necessity, but one of cold-blooded hatred and violence. Whoever did this broke our Code of discretion and secrecy by committing such an open and senseless murder. He will be punished.”

“You really don’t think this had to do with me?” she whispered.

“No. I told you before. If they had meant to come after you, you would be dead right now.” It was harsher than she’d wanted to put it, but she had to help Nicolette to overcome this senseless guilt.

Nicolette looked down. “I still feel as if it’s my fault.”

This was Nick’s child all right. “You and your father share a propensity for feeling guilty when you shouldn’t,” she observed. But she knew at once that she had pressed too far in mentioning Nick again.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” the girl said firmly, rising angrily.

“Why, Niki?” Janette asked gently. “If only you knew how much he has longed to meet you. How much he loves you.”

“I don’t care, Janette. I can accept you and what you are. And I know you’re trying to help us. But it’s *his* fault that I am what I am, and it’s my fault that Daddy’s dead. I just don’t want anything to do with him. Ever!” Tears were falling down her cheeks as she strode toward the staircase.

“Nicolette, please, wait!” Janette called, standing to go after her.

Niki turned to her. “This has nothing to do with you. All I wanted to do was tell you I was sorry. But I want to be alone right now. So good-night.” And she ran up the stairs.

Janette took a deep breath, collapsed back on the couch and picked up her glass. “Damn!” she cursed to herself. And as she heard Nicolette crying softly into her pillow, she wished she had handled the conversation differently. But she didn’t even know what she could possibly say to make things better. Tomorrow would not be an easy day.

Nick drove into the Emergency Room exit just as the sky was beginning to turn a sapphire blue. He barely noticed the people he passed on his way through the familiar corridors of the hospital. For the past five years he’d come here for his “supplies”. But there was something much different he needed right now.

He found Barbara working in her lab as usual. The pretty young doctor had surprised him four years ago on one of his midnight raids. But rather than be repulsed by his vampiric state, she’d found it fascinating. In exchange for a sample of his blood to experiment upon, she’d gladly provided him periodically with bags of hemoglobin.

It wasn’t difficult--her husband Phil was in charge of the blood bank.

The couple were probably his only friends in Denver. And he was counting on their friendship now. His daughter’s life might depend on it.

“Run out already?” she asked cheerily as she saw him.

“No. But something has come up, and I’m going to have to leave town.”

She sighed. “I wish you could take a cure with you. But I can’t get the leitovuterine-C to work for more than an extended period of time before the retrovirus mutates. Then it’s back to Square One.”

“I know,” he said sadly. “But I appreciate your trying.” He had told her of the temporary cure, hoping that she could perfect it. And when she had failed to do so, it had only added to his despair. It had been his only hope of being able to be reunited with Natalie.

But for now, any cure, even a temporary one, would do.

“I have one last favor to ask you, Barbara. I need a good supply of the Leitovuterine-C.”

Barbara looked at him with concern. “You know it won’t last long. We’ve talked about this. Even if you try to take it as a maintenance drug, the effectiveness between doses will keep decreasing until it has no effect at all.”

“I know,” he told her. “But it could mean saving the life of someone who is very important to me. I’m begging you. I don’t have much time--”

“Okay, Nick. I guess you’re old enough to know what you’re doing.”

He smiled. “Not always. But in this case, I do.”

She put in the call, and as they waited they made small talk. He’d never been able to confide in the couple very much of his past. They knew nothing of LaCroix, Natalie...or his child. Somehow it hurt him too deeply to speak of it. They’d respected his privacy. But now, as he was preparing to leave, Barbara couldn’t hold back the one question that had troubled her.

“Just one thing I always wanted to know, Nick. That ring you wear on your ring finger. It looks like a wedding band. Do you have a wife?”

She must have seen the sorrow in his eyes, because she quickly said, “I’m sorry, if it’s too personal--”

“No, that’s okay,” he told her. “No, we were never married. But I love her very much. We just couldn’t be together.”

At that moment, an orderly brought a package which she quickly checked out, then handed to him. “Well, then, I hope this helps bring you together,” she said with a knowing smile.

“I hope so too,” he replied wistfully.

Natalie stood staring at Steven’s casket, oblivious to the people who swarmed around her. She’d done her duty, graciously accepting their sympathies, hugging and kissing this or that relative of Steven’s, giving a perfunctory greeting to his many friends. But each person who repeated what a shock this had been, or asked once more what he had died from, or had he shown any signs of heart trouble, or why didn’t the ambulance come on time, brought her one step closer to falling from the precipice upon which her sanity was precariously balanced. Thank God for Nicolette, who stood by her side, responding from time to time when she no longer had the strength to do so. The worst was facing Steven’s parents, who had always been too deliberate in their attempts to make Niki feel like one of their “real” grandchildren. Her mother-n-law asked if she’d like them to take the kids for a few days, but she’d responded that she wanted to keep them close to her. That was the truth, after all. But there was no way she could tell them that tomorrow morning would be the last time they would see any of them again.

She felt guilty for that, as she did so many things. But Nicolette’s life was at stake. Janette’s handiwork in covering the circumstances of Steven’s death had not obscured the danger. If she could leave right now, she would. But as she stared now at Steven’s still form, she knew that she couldn’t leave, no matter what the risk.

He’d died for them. And she would see him buried before she went anywhere.

The last of the guests had gone, and they were alone now as a family. She stepped up to the casket, gently laying her hand on his clasped ones. “I love you, Steven,” she whispered, feeling the tears about to burst. “And I’m so sorry...”

She cried over him until she felt Nicolette’s hand on her shoulder, and felt Richie take her hand. She turned to hug them tightly, and walked away with her arms around them both.

He found the address easily enough, though the bright afternoon sun was hurting his eyes. It was a beautiful house, idyllic almost, shaded under one of the huge palm trees that lined the street. He checked his watch. Three-thirty. He rang the bell, feeling his heart pump blood just a little faster...

“Come in, Nicolas!’ he heard Janette call. He tried the door, and pushed it open.

Inside it was dark, with the curtains and vertical blinds drawn to prevent the light from shining through. As he closed the door, shutting out the brilliant sunlight, Janette came to meet him.

“It’s been a long time,” she said as he gave her a light kiss on the lips.

“Too long,” he said, as he held her for a moment in a warm embrace.

“You’ll forgive me for not answering the door,” she said with a smile.” I see sunlight isn’t bothering you these days. The leitovuterine again?”

He nodded. “And I have a big enough supply to last for months.”

“You just may need it,” she said. “It apparently works well; I didn’t even sense you.”

“I’m hoping LaCroix won’t either,” he said dryly. Then his impatience got the better of him. “Okay, now will you please tell me what’s going on?” He glanced around the house anxiously. “And where are they?”

Janette took a deep breath. She hadn’t slept much this morning, planning exactly what she would say. She was hoping for more success than she’d had with Nicolette. There was so much excitement in him, more life than she’d seen in thirteen years. And it had nothing to do with the drug. He had hope again. Something he had lost with Natalie.

It was that hope that she feared she would dash when she told him what she must.

“Nick, there’s no easy way to tell you this.”

“Then just say it,” he said in a low voice, lines of worry coming to his face.

“About two years after your daughter was born, Natalie met a man named Steven. She married him, Nick.”

Nick felt as if Janette had kicked him in the stomach. He had never in a million years expected this. For a long moment, he had no voice. Finally he said, “She...she’s been happy then.” He tried to veil his anguish in contentment that she had been all right. But he failed miserably.

“He adopted your daughter, Nicolette,” Janette went on.

Even the pride in knowing that Natalie had named her for him was lost in the agony of knowing that she had another father. That someone had taken his place not just with Natalie, but with their child.

“And they had another child, a little boy who’s four named Richie.”

“For her brother,” he said absently.

Janette rose to take a picture from their fireplace. A family shot from last Christmas....

Nick stared hard at the photo. Natalie, still beautiful as ever. His daughter, his *Nicolette*...absolutely lovely. An adorable little boy, her son that should have been his--named after the brother whom he himself had killed. And a tall blond man with his arm around Natalie--his Natalie. They looked so happy together. And for the first time, he felt utterly alone. Even in his desolation and despair, he had held on to the fantasy of them, of someday being a family. But they were part of a family in which he had no place. He wished the leitovuterine would wear off right now. If it did, he would have no compunctions about walking out into the sunlight....

“This...is her husband...” he managed, not taking his eyes off the picture.

“That *was* her husband,” Janette replied with meaning.

He looked up at her.

“Two nights ago, they came into my restaurant, quite by mistake. I sensed Niki right away. And I warned Natalie that now that she had hit puberty, it would become strong in her. They planned to get away. They were going to leave last night.” She paused. “Some vampire--a renegade, I believe--broke into the house and murdered her husband. He was drained completely.”

“Oh my God,” he whispered, closing his eyes. His own jealousy was drowned in the horror of what had happened. “Poor Nat,” he said with real sorrow. “She must be--” There was no word for it.

“She called me because she was devastated--and terrified. I had some friends cover it up, and I stayed here to protect them. But no one came back.”

He took her hand. “Thank you, Janette. For watching over them.”

“It was the least I can do. They are family, eh?” she said with meaning.

He took a deep breath. “Where are they now? I have to see them. I have to speak to her. There’s a place I just bought--no one knows of it, and no one could find us there. I could have them away by tonight.”

“Nick,” she warned. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Natalie already has arrangements with Aristotle to leave town. You must be prepared for the possibility that she won’t want to go off with you.”

Reality kicked in again. “I realize she no longer--feels the same way I do...” He couldn’t say that she didn’t love him anymore. It was too painful to say aloud.

She took his hand, squeezing it a little too hard as she forgot that he was human at the moment. “Listen to me. Don’t drown in self-pity yet. I know that’s your favorite pastime. She does still care about you, Nick. I saw it in her eyes the first time we spoke, in the way her heartbeat quickened when we mentioned you. I’m certain that in time she will want you back in her life...but you’re going to have to be patient this time. You can’t give in to your jealousy, or your desire for things to automatically be as they were thirteen years ago--”

“They’ll never be the same, Janette,” he said dully. “If she had really loved me--”

“Stop it, Nicolas!” she said almost angrily. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and imagine what she must have gone through. I’m sure that you yourself were the one to suggest that she leave to protect the baby. So that LaCroix and the Enforcers would never know by following you.”

He nodded reluctantly. “But as the time grew near, I changed my mind. I told her it was a mistake--”

“But did you offer her any real alternative? Any other way to ensure that her baby would be unharmed?”

“No,” he admitted. “You know I couldn’t.”

“So she went off alone to have this child of yours, to raise her by herself, knowing that if she wanted to protect Nicolette, she could never ever see you again. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“So after two years on her own, with no hope of seeing you again, do you blame her for trying to make a normal life for herself and her daughter?” She shook her head. “Really, Nick, if you can’t understand what she went through and get past your own pain, she’ll never be yours again.”

He knew in his heart that she was right. If only she could be right, too, that Natalie still cared for him...

“Oh, Nicolas,” she said, her tone much softer, as she touched his cheek with her cool fingers. “I know you have suffered, mon amour. But so has Natalie--more than you could ever imagine.”

“I know. And I won’t let her down this time,“ he vowed. He gave her a hug, drawing strength from her embrace.

“It’ll be all right,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. “Just be patient. And it will all work out.”

She’d known she wouldn’t be able to drive home, and had gladly accepted when Steven’s best friend offered them a lift. She opened the door slowly, afraid to let too much light in lest Janette should be on the other side.

She was. Waiting for them. And Natalie knew from the look on her face that something was going on.

“What happened?” she asked immediately.

“Everything’s all right,” Janette promised her. “But there’s someone here to see you. Waiting in the den.”

Natalie looked at her questioningly, but she offered no more information. Instead, the vampire greeted the kids and offered to get them a snack in the kitchen. Natalie stood for a long moment watching them head off with her, irritated that Janette hadn’t been more specific. Hadn’t she had enough problems today? She went to the den, opened the door, prepared for....

...anything but what she saw.

She stopped dead in her tracks. Her knees grew weak, and her heart skipped a beat. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

“Nick...” A whisper of shock.

There he stood, looking the same as he had thirteen years ago. Still young, still perfect, still looking at her with those blue eyes...eyes filled with anguish, as they had the day she’d left. For a long moment he stared at her, until finally he said, “Hi, Nat.”

And suddenly, it hit her. She had spent thirteen years away from him, raised their daughter without him, just to protect her. And now, an eternity later, in the midst of everything that had happened, as Steven lay dead, here he was, like a trumpet call to LaCroix or any other vampire that might follow. This was it. She could not bear all that she had been through in the last twenty-four hours...and this. It was too much. And the rage that had slowly been building within her, erupted.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!”

Nick had known that this would not be the joyous reunion he had fantasized. But he had never anticipated this.

“I came..when I heard...I just want to help you, Nat,” he stammered.

“Help me?” she cried. “How, by leading LaCroix straight to our daughter?!”

“Nat, I just want to help you protect her.-”

“I think it’s a little too late, Nick! I’ve spent the last thirteen years of my life protecting her! And I did it alone, because *you* said that your presence would attract LaCroix, and the Enforcers. Well, unless the rules have changed, you’ve got some nerve showing up now! In case you didn’t know, I’ve just come back from my husband’s wake!”

“I know, Nat,” he told her, shaken. “I’m sorry--”

“You should be sorry!,” she cried, her face hot with tears. “Because he was my husband, and I loved him, and now he’s lying there dead because of you and your kind! I don’t need your help! You’ve fucked up my life enough! And I didn’t protect Niki all those years just to have you waltz back into our lives and bring LaCroix with you!”

“Nat, please, listen to me--” he begged, reaching out to her. But she pulled away.

“Just get the hell out of here!” she sobbed. “Just leave us alone!”

` He didn’t know what to do. He knew what he wanted to do. To pull her into an embrace, to hold her as she cried, to calm her with his kiss, to tell her how much he loved her, to promise that he would make it safe for all of them. But he knew that was impossible. She would hear none of it. And her words, the venom in her voice, the anger that she had built up against him, were devastating.

He moved towards the door. Her outburst was over, and she was simply staring at him, as if not sure what he would do. “I’m sorry, Nat,” he said in a broken voice. When she did not interrupt, he prayed for the strength to say what he needed to. “You don’t have to worry about LaCroix. I took the Leitovuterine

to come here by day. I only wanted to help you. All these years I’ve dreamed about seeing you again...about meeting our child...when I heard where you were, and that you were in danger...” There were tears in his eyes and in his voice, choking him as he said, “How could I stay away?”

She said nothing. He turned back toward the door. “I’ll let Janette know where you can find me,” he managed, and left without looking back.

Janette was coming out of the kitchen as he closed the den door behind him. He knew that with her preternatural hearing, she had heard it all, whether she’d wanted to or not.

“You were wrong, Janette,” he said, struggling to keep back his tears. “She hates me. And she blames me for everything.

“No, Nick, she doesn’t,” Janette tried to tell him, wiping his cheek with her finger.

He pulled away from her. He didn’t need to be coddled with lies anymore.

“You’ve got my cell phone number,” he said dully, and left.

He collapsed in the front seat of his car, burying his head in the steering wheel. Damn this sunlight. Nowhere to hide his tears. Nowhere to be alone in his misery.

Yet he knew that sunlight was the only thing that would release him from his pain now.

Natalie stared after him, then collapsed on the couch. She wanted to remain angry at him. She wanted to hate him for taking a risk like this. She wanted to scream at him until her voice was gone, until there was nothing left to blame him for.

She wanted him to come back.

And she realized that perhaps that was the real reason she had lashed out at him.

She found Janette standing by the front door, weary from daytime, from last night, and from what she surely knew had just happened.

“Why did you do it, Janette?” she asked, her pain overshadowing her anger. “Why?”

Janette faced her, her own sorrow at what had just transpired, at her plan gone awry, clearly emblazoned on her features. “Because you need him, Natalie,” she said passionately.

“I don’t need him,” she lied.

“Because you *love* him,” Janette responded.

She didn’t have the strength, or the will, to deny it. She turned from Janette, not wanting her to see how right she had been.

But Janette had seen.

And so had Niki.

Natalie pushed around the salad with her fork, conscious of the fact that Richie and Nicolette were watching her intently. Dinner had been a fairly silent affair. It was their first family meal without Steven, and his empty chair sat at the head of the table as a grim reminder.

“I guess I’m not too hungry either,” she said to them, pushing her plate away.

“Mommy, can I go upstairs and watch a video?” Richie pleaded, his chicken fingers barely eaten.

“Of course you can,” Natalie told him, stroking his hair. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to sit here. None of them did.

As he ran up the stairs, Nicolette turned to her mother. “You want me to go watch him and take care of his bath and stuff? You look really tired.”

Natalie gave her a weak smile. “You’re an angel.” She did need a rest.

Although she dreaded being alone with her thoughts. They hadn’t been very kind to her.

Nicolette stood to leave, but thought better of it. She turned back to her mother, bent towards her ear to whisper in a confidential tone, “I just want you to know, that I think you did the right thing.”

It took Natalie totally aback. “What do you mean?”

Nicolette sat down next to her. “You know, throwing him out. Telling him he’s messed up our lives enough.” She shook her head. “He has no business being here.”

Natalie’s heart sank. She had said those things in anger, and regretted them ever since. And now, Nicollete, having obviously heard it all, was attempting to add her stamp of approval. She couldn’t bear to hear her daughter --Nick’s daughter-- speak of him in this way. But how could she fault her when Nicolette had heard those very words out of her mother’s own mouth?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to listen,” she apologized, reading Natalie’s dismay as disapproval for her eavesdropping. “The last couple of days I’ve been hearing things...that were really low or far away. I didn’t say anything because it scared me--I thought I was going crazy--until before, when I realized Janette and I were both hearing the same thing.”

Natalie breathed deeply, and looked into her daughter’s eyes. “Niki, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you for listening. Along with the other--abilities--you must have developed acute hearing, like *they* have.”

“I guess I’ll just have to try not to listen to everything I hear,” she said guiltily.

“You can work on it,” Natalie assured her. “But listen, sweetie, I want you to know something. The things I said to Nick--your father--I said because I was angry, and upset over Daddy. And because I was scared for you. But I was wrong. None of this is his fault.”

“Yes it is,” she said bitterly. “Mom, listen to me--I know how you felt about him. But don’t you realize that it *is* his fault? And that we’re better off without him?”

Natalie shook her head sadly. “Niki, you’re angry. Like I was. Like I *am*. But we can’t blame Nick. He...cares about us, and just wants to help.”

“We don’t need his help,” she said angrily, rising.

She started to leave, and Natalie went after her, just as Janette walked in, refreshed from her rest.

“It’s sundown,” Niki observed as she saw her. She turned to her mother. “I’m gonna go take care of Richie.”

“Niki, please!”

But the girl was hurrying up the stairs.

“Let her cool off, Natalie,” Janette said, touching her arm to keep her from following.

“It’s all my fault,” she fretted. “She heard every word I said to Nick--”

“She has heightened senses now,” Janette told her. “But you musn’t feel guilty. She already felt that way last night, when I spoke to her. I don’t think hearing you made much of a difference.” She went to the refrigerator, and pulled out two bottles, one of her own, and one Natalie recognized as White Zinfandel. Janette handed them to her. “Now where are your wine glasses?”

At Natalie’s questioning look, she said, “I think it’s about time you sat down, relaxed, and had a drink. You could use it.”

Natalie didn’t argue. At each turn things became more and more complex. Maybe she did need to loosen up a little...

An hour later, she was feeling a *lot* better. She’d finished the White Zinfandel long before Janette had gotten halfway through her bottle of blood, and had gone on to the Absolut. She was already light-headed, and it occurred to her that she’d better not let the knife slip as she cut up chunks of lime to put in her vodka. Bleeding in front of a vampire wasn’t the safest thing to do. “You know, I never could find good limes in Toronto,” she commented as she refilled her glass

“We didn’t have much call for them at the Raven“, Janette replied dryly.

Somehow Natalie found that very funny and started laughing. “Oh God, I’m getting giggly,” she said, pouring yet another glass and squeezing two pieces of lime into it. “Back then, Janette, would you ever have imagined that we’d be sitting here drinking together?”she mused.

“Never,” Janette replied and smiled. “Although I did once tell you we’d have to get together and talk. I think that made Nicolas very nervous.”

Natalie sobered at the mention of his name. “Yeah, well, I guess he’s not an issue between us any more.” Now she really needed a refill.

“Natalie, he never really was,“ Janette said seriously. “What he and I had was over long before you met him.”

Natalie looked into her eyes with a hurt that had been hidden very deeply for a very long time. “Janette, I knew. I knew about all the times he went to you.” It wasn’t an accusation; it was a statement of fact.

Silence fell between them for a moment. What more could be said about that? And Janette’s very failure to coment deepened the wound, for it confirmed it. But there was more to be said. “There’s something else. When you came back to town, when you were mortal--”

“You helped me, and I was very grateful,” Janette finished, as if trying to avoid the direction where Natalie was headed.

“I was nasty to you. I was rude,” she admitted. “And I’m really sorry about that. I probably wouldn’t admit this to you if I weren’t tipsy, but I suppose it was because I was jealous. I was jealous of what you had been able to do with Robert. Make love to him. Become mortal. I wanted to be with Nick so badly. And we couldn’t.”

“He was afraid to risk your life,” Janette reminded her gently.

“I know. But there’s more to it. He and I had gotten so close in those months you were away. And then there you were. And you weren’t a vampire anymore. You were on the same level as I was. Except that you had known him for eight hundred years. And I was afraid--”

“But you didn’t have to be, Natalie. Even before I left Toronto, I knew that Nicolas was in love with you!”

“Then why did he always go back to you?” she asked, the alcohol beginning to hit her with all it’s force as a depressant.

Janette paused, and Natalie couldn’t be sure for how long. She could hear herself speak, and yet it was as if it were someone else. And the rational part of her told her she was crazy to admit these things to the woman who had been her rival for Nick’s love for so long. Yet the part of her that had been released of inhibitions told her that it didn’t matter anymore. Nick was out of her life--she had seen to that herself this afternoon. And after tomorrow, she would never see Janette again. What did it matter if she appeared weak or jealous? Did any of these things matter anymore? No. So what the hell. Let it out.

“Natalie,” Janette finally said. “I loved Nicolas once. But *I* left *him* to go on with my life. And while there was still a bond between us, it was the bond of having shared blood, and of friendship. You were right. There were many times he came to me during the time he knew you--”

Even having known it made it so difficult to hear....

“But I will admit something to you now that I have never admitted to anyone. In a way, Nicolas used me. He would come to me when he was frustrated about his inability to be with you. Because I could assuage his hunger, and his desires, in a way that you could not without risking your life or being brought over.”

“I would have trusted him to try...” she said softly.

“But he loved you too much, Natalie.” She hesitated before going on and Natalie realized it was a difficult admission. “I could feel his love for you, his desire for you, in his blood. And I won’t lie and tell you that at the time it didn’t hurt me.”

“He hurt us both,” Natalie mused with a new realization.

Janette nodded. “But once he admitted to himself his feelings for you, and commited to beginnning a relationship with you--there was nothing more between us. And when I...fell in love with Robert,” she said with a sad smile as she remembered him, “I knew...that any romantic feeling I had had for Nick was gone. Just a pleasant memory. Nothing more.”

Natalie was silent for a moment, formulating the question she just had to ask. “Janette, after I was gone...in the last thirteen years...”

“Natalie, we were never together like that again,” Janette broke in, anticipating her concern.

“But he brought you back across,” Natalie said, though she knew it must be a sensitive topic.

“Yes,” Janette said, taking a taste of her bloodwine, and clearly trying to repress the anger she still felt. “In time I forgave him for that. But we never shared blood again.” She finished off her glass, dismissing the memory with the last sip.

“Janette, I appreciate your telling me this..but the truth is, none of it matters anymore.”

The vampire gave her a look of admonition. “We’ve been very honest to each other. Are you going to sit there and lie to me now, and say that you don’t love him?”

She was right. Janette had opened up to her--something she’d never imagined her capable of doing. Once more, the alcohol released her from the bonds of propriety and self-denial. “No. I can’t. I do love him--” But she stopped abruptly as shame kicked in. “My God, listen to me! How can I be talking like this while my husband --?”

“Natalie, you loved Steven,” Janette told her. “And no one is suggesting you do anything to dishonor him or his memory. But you can’t push Nick away in your grief, not when you and Nicolette need him so. Not when he needs to be here for you.”

“Today, when I saw Nick...” she began, wanting to organize her thoughts as much as confide them in someone, “I was so glad to see him. But at the same time, I was angry at myself for that. I couldn’t allow myself to be nice to him, to feel anything for him. I thought that if I did, it would be disloyal to Steven. And then when I heard Niki talking that way about him...blaming him...saying that I’d done the right thing...” She looked at Janette, teary-eyed from the vodka and from the stress of it all. “I knew just how wrong I had been.”

“Nicolette is doing the same thing as you did, Natalie,” Janette pointed out, although she’d already known. “She’s afraid to care for Nick. She thinks that would be disloyal to her step-father.”

“It’s a little different for me,” Natalie reminded her. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t just forget the past ten years with Steven--”

“No one is asking you to. He only wants to help you.”

“I know.” She shook her head. “I was so cruel to him. I wish I could take it all back.”

“Then tell him,” Janette prodded.

Natalie looked at her helplessly. “How? I sent him away.”

Janette motioned with her head to the door, and made a half-amused face. “I hate to tell you this, but he’s been lurking around outside ever since dark. I don’t think he ever left.”

“What?” And now, with this release of tension, she laughed.

“I didn’t sense him, of course. I heard him, and then when I stepped outside I saw him hiding behind a tree. It’s quite pathetic actually. He’s not quite as stealthy as he was as a vampire.” And now Janette laughed with her. “Remember, Natalie. He’s a thirteenth century man. He knows I’m protecting you, but he still must think that only a man can do the job right.”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “I think I’d better let him in.”

She stood and Janette stopped her, whispering, “You might want to speak more quietly this time.” She motioned to upstairs, where Nicolette was in her room.

“Yeah, I have to get used to having a daughter with hearing like the Bionic Woman,”she joked. Then, at Janettte’s puzzled expression, added, “You know, on TV. Didn’t you ever watch TV when you were young--” She stopped herself and gave an apologetic expression. “Sorry, never mind.”

“They didn’t have TV when I was younger,” Janette confided with a wry smile.

Natalie hadn’t realized just how drunk she was until she stood up--and the room started to sway. She made her way to the front door, nevertheless, grabbing onto a piece of furniture here and there to steady herself. This wouldn’t do. How could she talk to him like this?

Maybe this was the only way she could.

She hated losing control. Yet she’d done that with him pretty well this afternoon, and she’d been sober.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” she heard Janette ask in the background.

“Not in the least,” she replied, and opened the door.

The cool evening breeze was great. For a moment she let it wash over her, waking her from what was quickly becoming a stupor. Feeling refreshed, she looked around.

He wasn’t there.

More disappointed than she liked, she was about to tell Janette that she had been wrong. Instead she tried another approach, hoping no neighbors would hear her.

“You might as well show yourself, Nick. I know you’re there.”

He stepped from the bushes, and stood only feet from her. He was clearly embarrassed, and looked at her apologetically as he said, “I’m sorry, Nat. I just wanted to make sure no one--”

“I know,” she said wearily. “Come on inside, Nick.”

His face registered both surprise and relief as she turned to the door and motioned for him to follow. Janette had discreetly slipped away to leave them alone. Natalie only wished she hadn’t taken the vodka with her.

She led him back to the den, closing the door behind them. Somehow it seemed more private in a closed room, though she knew damn well that either Janette or Niki could hear them if they wanted to. She imagined that Janette was somehow occupying Nicolette to keep her from listening, and Natalie was grateful for that. She was uncomfortable enough without having to worry that their daughter might eavesdrop.

“We have to talk,” she said, turning to him.

And looking at him now in the light, she couldn’t help but notice how handsome he still was, how young, how...unchanged. It made her suddenly feel terribly self-conscious. What must he be thinking to see her like this, thirteen years older, and not exactly at her best? She dismissed those thoughts. They were irrelevant right now.

And forbidden.

“Nick, I--”

“Nat, let me start,” he begged, his eyes still filled with the same anguish she had left there that afternoon.

She was silent. She wanted to apologize. But she’d said enough. Give him a chance.

“Natalie, I just want you to know,” he began in a broken voice. “I never meant to upset you. I know...you’ve been through a lot. I don’t want to complicate your life. Just please, let me see you and the kids safely away from here...and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Oh, Nick...” she sighed in despair. She hated to see him like this. Especially knowing that she had devastated him with her words.

“Nat...I can’t walk away...without knowing that you...and my little girl..are safe...” Every word resounded his pain.

Tears filled her eyes. “Oh God, Nick, I’m so sorry....The way I spoke to you...the things I said...I was so wrong!”

He brough his hand up to her cheek. God, how his fingers were like fire on her skin! Was it the alcohol, or just his touch after so long? She found herself trembling at his caress.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “You were right, Nat. I’ve brought you nothing but unhappiness.”

“That’s not true and you know it!” she said in a hushed whisper, hearing the passion in her own voice. Everything was coming to a head: Steven’s death, Nicolette’s anger, her own rage and sorrow...and Nick, here before her, after all these years, in anguish over her... If only she could tell him how much she did love him and need him...She hoped he could see in her eyes what she could not say. “Nick, please, just understand,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “The last twenty four hours have been hell...I’ve been angry...and scared ...” She couldn’t go on. Her voice was already choked with emotions about to erupt. She clasped her hand over his....

...and felt it there. The ring she had given him. She was overwhelmed at once with her love for him, a love that had never diminished no matter how hard she had tried to relegate it to her past...

...and guilt. At least she had had Nicolette, and then a new life, with Steven and Richie. Nick had had no one, nothing but his hope of seeing her and their child again someday. He’d rushed to be with her at the first news of danger....And how had she greeted him? With animosity, anger, cruelty. All because she’d been afraid to admit how much she really did want and need him there...

She looked into his eyes, blinking back the tears that threatened to blind her. And she realized that his attention had been drawn to something else: his diamond ring on the hand she had placed over his.

A slight smile had crossed his lips, and his tear-filled eyes registered...relief? He took her hand, holding it between his for a long moment, then bringing it up to his lips, brushing them across her skin. Again, the warmth of his touch sent a shiver through her body. He held her ringed hand against his cheek, and she found herself running her fingers delicately across his stubble, then back into his soft blond hair. His eyes shone his love for her as he said, in a voice still choked with feeling, “I guess...this means you didn’t forget me.”

“Did you really think I could?” she rasped. Had he really believed that what she’d felt for him could ever be extinguished, even with time, even with the new life she’d been forced to forge for herself and her daughter? Yes. He had. And she had only contributed to his pain and desolation with her hateful words. “Nick, I--”

But what could she say? What did she dare say? And it was then that she could control herself no more. And the emotions that had been bubbling within her for hours, for days, for years, burst forth. She fell into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably...for him, for her, for *them*. For Steven, who hadn’t deserved to die; for Nicolette who had never known her father, and for Richie who would never again see his. For what she had done to Nick today...for the role she had played in leading Steven to his death...for the life she and Steven had had cut so tragically short...for the life she and Nick had been deprived of. And as the alcohol she had drunk brought her into new depths of depression, she clung to Nick, knowing that only here, in his arms, could she ever feel hope again. She’d been a fool to turn him away. And as he held her tightly, she knew that no one in her life had ever made her feel so safe, so loved....

“It’s okay, Nat,” he whispered, hugging her to him, kissing her tenderly on the cheek. It was the most he dared. But right now, just holding her was enough, just knowing that no matter what had gone on in her life, he had always had a place in her heart...

“I’m so glad you’re here, “ she wept. “I was so afraid...”

“Shhhh,” he soothed her, kissing her on the forehead, relishing the scent of her skin, her hair, her perfume. Just as he’d remembered, but more intoxicating than he’d recalled. It was still so hard to believe that she was real this time, and not some fantasy of his blood-induced stupor....

For too short a time she rested in his embrace. When she pulled away, he took her face in his hands, looking into her eyes. “You’re safe now, do you hear me? I’m going to take you all away, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She nodded weakly, her emotion evidently spent. He let his hands fall down to take hers, fighting the overpowering desire to kiss her full on the lips.

She was still so beautiful, the years making her only more desirable to him.

“Nick, I can’t go until tomorrow,” she said slowly. “Steven’s funeral...I have to be there. I *want* to be there. I can’t go until I see him properly buried.”

“I understand,“ he said quickly, trying not to let her see how much the mention of her husband still pained him. “We’ll leave right afterwards. Take advantage of the daylight. There’s a place I bought in Europe. No one knows about it, not even Janette. No one will ever find us there....”

She nodded briskly, not really seeming up to hearing the details. She was leaving it in his hands, entrusting their lives to him.

He would not let them down.

He released her hand reluctantly. He could sense that the contact had made her uncomfortable, and wasn’t going to push his luck. “You’d better...get some sleep,” he said awkwardly, putting her need for rest ahead of his need to be with her.

She nodded, then offered him a smile. “There’s one thing I have to do first,” she told him mysteriously.

“What?” He had no idea what it could be.

“I have to introduce you to your daughter.”

And his heart sang just in anticipation. He couldn’t imagine how he had ever considered ending his life. It was just about to get good again.

Nick could feel his heart pounding as Natalie called their daughter downstairs. With the excitement of an expectant father, he watched, waited...

And there she was. So beautiful. Janette had been wrong. She didn’t look like him. In her eyes, her lovely features, her step...she was Natalie. He smiled as she came towards him, wanting desperately to hug her, hold her, tell her how sorry he was for not being there for her all these years....

“Nicolette, this is Nick. Your father.”

“Hello, Nicolette,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “You don’t know how happy I am to--”

His words, and his joy, were cut short as she came to face him. Eyes filled with anger, face an emotionless mask, she looked at him accusingly and said, “You’re not my father. My father is dead. And it’s your fault.”

His heart rose into his throat. He could hear Natalie take in a breath, and moan, “Oh, Niki...”

He struggled to contain his disappointment, his anguish, as he said, “I’m very sorry about what happened, Nicolette. But I promise you I had nothing to do with it. I’m only here to help you.”

She seemed to hesitate a moment, as if trying to evaluate what he had said. But she simply replied, “We don’t need your help.” She held out her hand to him, and he could see that she was holding something she wanted to give him. He laid open his palm, and without touching him, she deposited it there.

“I think this is yours,” she said.

His heart sank as he saw the Brabant family ring he’d given Natalie as a gift for their baby. He’d never imagined their baby would reject it...reject him...like this. “It’s yours,” he said softly, his voice beginning to break. “I wanted you to have it.”

“I don’t want it,” she replied stiffly.

Nick took a deep breath as he slipped it into his pocket. “Well, I’ll hold onto it for you then,” he said, trying to obscure his pain from her. “Someday, if you want it back, it’s yours.”

Nicolette seemed to falter for a moment, surprised by his response. But her facade of indifference returned as she said, “Don’t hold your breath.”

“Niki, that’s enough!” Natalie cried, flabbergasted.

“It’s okay, Nat,” Nick told her, his gaze on her daughter unwavering. “She’s been through a lot.”

Again, he saw a glimpse of the child within, hiding behind the tough exterior. How he longed to reach her! But in a moment she had turned on her heel and run up the stairs. He looked to Natalie, and could see the sadness that mirrored his own. This wasn’t what she had planned either.

“Nick, I’m so sorry,” she said, clearly mortified. “I knew she was upset...and bitter...but I didn’t think--”

“It’s okay,” he reassured her, trying to force a smile. He felt physically ill, but now was the time to be strong for Natalie. “Give her time...”

“It’s my fault. She heard me today when I--”

“Don’t do this to yourself again, Nat. It’ll be okay.” He squeezed her hand.

Just then, Janette came down the stairs. Nick knew she had heard. But her sympathetic expression did little to ease the ache in the pit of his stomach. “She’ll come around, Nicolas. She did with me, even after she tried to shoot me.”

His eyes opened wide. “After she what?”

“It’s a long story,” Nat told him. “I’m going to go talk to her--”

“Natalie, wait, let me,” Janette offered. “She was angry at you for letting him in. It might be better if someone else spoke to her.”

Reluctantly, Natalie agreed.

“Besides,” Janette added, “I did want to say good bye. I’ll be gone in the morning when she wakes up.”

“Then I guess I’d better say good-bye too,” Natalie said. Did Nick notice a look of regret in her eyes? “Thank you, Janette,” she said warmly. “For everything. I wouldn’t have gotten through the last day without your help. And your friendship.“

Nick raised his eyebrows as the women gave each other an affectionate hug. When had they become friends? Had he missed something?

“Just don’t forget our “talk”,” Janette said with meaning, shooting a playful look at Nick.

Natalie nodded silently and Janette headed up the stairs.

When they were alone, he turned to her “So, just what did you two, uh, talk about?” He tried to hide his apprehension under a veil of curious amusement.

“Oh, just girl stuff,” Natalie teased him, then grew serious. “She really did a lot to help us--to help me. I don’t know how I would have handled this all without her. She even took away Richie’s memory of seeing--” She stopped abruptly, visibly shaken, and Nick knew that the image of Steven’s body had swum before her.

“It’ll be okay,” he assured her, touching her arm. How soft her skin was!

She nodded and broke the contact, to his dismay. “I--I’d better get some rest,” she told him. “Do you need anything--? There are pillows and sheets in the linen closet, over there-”

“I won’t be sleeping,” he replied. “I’ll sleep on the plane tomorrow.”

“Well there’s food--you *are* eating food now?--in the kitchen, and--”

“Don’t worry about me, Nat,” he reassured her. “I’ll be fine. Just get your sleep. You’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

She sighed deeply. “You’re right.Good night, Nick.” She took two steps up the stairs then turned back to him. “Nick, my gun, with the wooden bullets. It’s in--”

“I’ve got my own,” he told her. “Not to mention a few other supplies.”

Seemingly satisfied, and looking much more relaxed to hear of his preparedness, she bid him good-night once more, and went upstairs.

Nick just stared after her, wishing he could follow, and ashamed of himself for his thoughts.

Janette found Nicolette awake. The girl sensed her before she saw her, and sat up in bed, waiting for the reprimand she obviously expected.

Janette wasn’t about to disappoint her. “That wasn’t very nice, Niki,” she said quietly but sternly. “He’s waited thirteen years to meet you. And you hurt him very deeply.”

Nicolette looked down. “I couldn’t help it. I don’t want him here. It’s his fault Daddy’s dead.”

“Niki, look at me. Tell me how it’s his fault.”

Nicolette faced her, her eyes brimming with tears. “Because it’s his fault that I’m what I am, and it’s because of me that Daddy’s dead.”

Janette shook her head. “I told you, I don’t believe that Steven was murdered because of you. And regardless of that--you can’t blame yourself for what you are. And you can’t blame him or your mother for bringing you into this world. They both love you, and wanted to have you.”

“He should have known I would be like this.”

“Niki, if you’re going to follow that line of reasoning, then you might as well blame LaCroix for making your father what *he* is. Or me, for leading him to LaCroix eight hundred years ago.”

“You--?” Her eyes opened wide.

“Yes, I seduced him and brought him to LaCroix, “ she told her, not without difficulty. “But that was eight centuries ago. How far back are you willing to throw blame? Can’t you just accept that this was a senseless act by a creature with no regard for human life? That the responsibility lies with no one--not you, not your father or your mother.”

Nicolette nodded slowly. “I know...I guess. But it a just so hard to see him...right now...I mean, when I found out about him, I wanted to meet him. And I knew Mommy still cared about him, but that didn’t bother me because I knew she loved Daddy, and we were all happy together. Now, him being here, and seeing my mom with him....there’s something not right about it. And I can’t just...accept him right now. Not while Daddy is lying there...” Her voice became too choked with her emotions to speak. And as she began to cry, Janette opened her arms to her, comforting her, wishing it were in her power to take away this child’s anguish.

“You feel guilty about his being here,” Janette said softly, stroking her hair. “You think that if you accept him, then you’re betraying your step-father.”

“I guess so,” Nicolette admitted.

“But that’s not true, Niki. Steven knew how much you loved him, and nothing will ever change that. You’ll always have your love and your memories of him. But Nick is your father, and he loves you, and just wants to protect you. Please, just try to give him a chance.”

“Okay,” she said after a long moment, her voice nasal from crying.

She sat back against the pillows, bringing her knees up and hugging them. “I guess everyone is mad at me now.”

“No. No one is angry with you. It’s been a difficult day for everyone. You all just need time.’

She seemed satisfied with that, and Janette began to think that it might not be long before Nicolette was warming up to Nick.

“Janette, can I ask you something?” Niki asked suddenly in a confidential tone. “You said if I had any questions about him--”

This certainly was a positive start. “Go ahead,” she smiled. “What do you want to know?”

“About him...and you. Were you ever boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Janette hadn’t expected that. or perhaps she had, but had still not figured out quite how to answer.

“Well, as I told you, I brought him to LaCroix. And later on, we did become as you say, boyfriend and girlfriend,” she said, finding the terms totally inappropriate, but remembering she was talking to a young girl.

Nicolette’s face seemed to darken, and Janette saw Natalie in her expression. “Were you--when he met my mom?”

And Janette smiled slightly. The hint of jealousy, of looking after her mother’s interests where Nick was concerned, was a good sign. “No,” she assured her, “your father and I were--together like that--a long time ago. During the Renaissance, in Europe. Five hundred years ago. But that ended, and we were just friends.”

“Are you sure?” she pressed, and Janette feared what she might have overheard of her conversation with Natalie. She would have to be honest if Nicolette were to trust her, trust Nick, and accept it if someday her parents were together again.

Janette looked into her eyes. “There were times, before he and your mother began a real--relationship--that he was very angry and frustrated that he could not be with her. He was afraid that he would hurt her if he could not control the vampire within him. Sometimes, he would come to me--to share blood, to assuage his hunger... But he loved your mother desperately. And once they were together, there was never anything more like that between us again.”

Nicolette considered her words a moment, then asked quietly, “Not even after Mommy left with me?”

“No, Niki,” Janette promised her.

“Can I ask you something personal, Janette?”

She nodded, waiting for the question, although she had already guessed it.

“Do *you* still love him?”

“Not in that way,” she told her honestly. “You see, I too fell in love with someone else. His name was Robert...” And briefly, more briefly than something that had impacted so greatly upon her deserved, she told Nicolette about Robert. His death. Her newfound mortality. And how Nick had brought her back across.

Nicolette’s lips parted in surprise. “He made you a vampire again?”

Janette tried to control her own feelings on that count as she explained, “It was to save my life. I would have died. And although at the time perhaps I would have preferred to die--I know he only did it because he cared for me. And I’m glad now that he did.” It was the truth. And she had told Nick that, resolved it with him, long ago.

“So if he brought you across, that makes him your--?” She was searching for the word. “--master?”

Janette almost laughed at that, then became serious. “No, not quite. Technically I suppose, but he would never try to control me as LaCroix did. In our community, probably a more appropriate term would be--father.” Even that seemed ludicrous after their long history together, but it was more accurate.

“So, in a weird sort of way, doesn’t that make you my sister?”

Janette smiled at her. “I guess so. If you’d like to think of me that way.”

Nicolette returned her smile, and it warmed Janette’s heart as she said, “I’d like that.”

Janette nodded, her expression tender as she said, “So would I, Niki.”

For a few minutes more they talked, until Janette was certain that her new-found little sister was at ease. She was enjoying this immensely. Nicolette was really such a sweet young girl, having seemed to inherit the best of both her parents. It was with great reluctance that she finally said, “Well, you’d better get your rest. I came up here because I wanted to say goodbye. I’ll have to leave before morning, and you’ll all be gone before nightfall.”

Nicolette looked suddenly distressed, and Janette wished she could be there to help her in the difficult days ahead.

“Can’t you come with us?” she pleaded.

“I can’t, Niki. It wouldn’t be safe for you. But we’ll see each other again some day. I promise.”

Niki threw her arms around Janette’s neck, and she hugged the little girl tightly.

“Thank you for everything, Janette,” she said, her words filled with emotion. “I’m really going to miss you.”

“So will I,” she said softly.

She would miss them all.

Natalie unzipped her overnight bag, repacking it for the third time, determined to fit everything she wanted into it. There were so many things now that seemed important to have with her. A small album of wedding pictures, jewelry and small gifts Steven had given her over the years....things she’d have willingly left behind...

...if Steven were going with them.

It seemed so important now to have these momentos. Besides her son, her most precious gift from Steven, they were the only physical reminders she would have of their life together. When she’d first packed her bag, they were going as a family. But now, he was gone. It still hadn’t completely hit her until she’d seen him lying in the casket. Tomorrow morning she would say good-bye to him.

Forever.

What irony that Nick should be just downstairs. Thirteen years ago, it had devastated her to say good-bye to him, seemingly forever. Yet there was no permanence such as that of death. Nothing would ever bring Steven back to her. He was gone. Like her parents. Her brother. Her god-daughter.

Death had touched her so often in her life. But even her faith in something beyond offered little comfort now. This should not have happened. Steven should be here, alive, right now....

She didn’t know how long she’d been weeping over the photo she held clutched in her hand, when there came a knock at her bedroom door. She hoped it wasn’t Nick. She didn’t want to deal with him now. She wanted to grieve. And she couldn’t mourn for Steven, and deal with the myriad of mixed emotions that Nick’s arrival had brought, at the same time. It was too much. And Steven came first. He had to right now.

She went to the door, relieved when she found Niki standing on the other side. “Are you okay, Mommy?” she asked.

Natalie nodded, trying to wipe away her tears. “How about you?’”

Nicolette shrugged uncomfortably. She was on the verge of tears herself. “I just can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about Daddy...” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and Natalie took her into her arms, hugging her tightly.

“I know, sweetie. Me too.”

“Do you think it would be okay if I stayed here tonight?” she asked timidly.

“I’d love the company,” her mother told her honestly. She’d hated the thought of sleeping alone in that big bed, the bed she had shared with Steven just two nights ago.

Niki smiled and got under the sheets. Natalie tucked her in, then lay down herself. Maybe now she could rest.

She shut the light, leaving on a small lamp. There was something too frightening about the dark right now. She lay on her back, hoping the shivers she’d felt crawling down her spine would go away. Was it her nerves? A presence? Steven’s spirit still among them? The thought of the latter gave her comfort, and yet....

“Mom?”

Niki’s voice almost made her jump. She turned to her, with as much of a smile as she could muster. “What is it, Niki?”

“Are you, uh, mad at me?”

How could she be? Niki was a victim in all this. “No, I’m not mad.” She stroked her hair.

“I didn’t mean to be so nasty,” she admitted. “I just--” She didn’t even seem to have the words or the strength to explain it right now.

“It’s okay. Niki, there’s a lot going on. For all of us. We all need some time.”

Her daughter nodded. Not having her mother angry for her behavior had taken a load off her mind.

“Let’s not think about anything right now. Just Daddy. And how much we loved him. Because tomorrow...we have to say good-bye.”

“I miss him so much!” Niki said, tears filling her eyes. “I wish he were here!”

“So do I,” Natalie said softly, hugging her. And together they cried until they fell asleep.

Outside he watched, waited, cursing himself once more for not acting quickly enough. With Nicholas and Janette here, he didn’t dare make his move on them. But the day would come. He would not rest until it did.

The morning sun was shining brightly, and although he was waiting for them within the confines of the limousine, he still needed the dark sunglasses to look out on the scene before him. Dozens of people were gathered in the cemetery, a great tribute to this man who seemed to be so well-loved. Part of Nick wished he had met him, that he had known the man who had loved Natalie, and been a father to his daughter. And yet he didn’t know how he would react were Steven still alive. How would he feel to meet the man living the life that should have been his? Husband to his Natalie, Daddy to his Nicolette...

His eyes were transfixed on Natalie’s face. Her beauty. Her pain. Her love for this other man. He watched her as she cried, made the sign of the cross, and threw roses onto her husband’s casket. His gaze followed her as she reached down to pick up her son, holding him in one arm, her other arm around Nicolette’s shoulders, comforting the little girl who had wept the entire time. A man led them away, the funeral director perhaps. Natalie looked back, one last time.

And Nick hated himself for what he was feeling. He should be thinking of their grief now. And yet, all he could feel was his own. She had loved this other man so deeply. It was painfully clear. And while he should have been glad that they had had a happy life until now, all he could feel was his own burning jealousy to see them crying over another man. Another husband. Another father.

Shame overwhelmed him. How could he be jealous of a man who lay dead? Yet it was the memory of Steven, of what he had meant to them, that he feared he could never compete against. And the thought of being so close to them, without being a part of them, was unbearable.

But he could never let her know his feelings. Janette had made him promise to give them both time. To mourn. To recover. To start a new life. But his fear that he would not be a part of that life was almost crippling. He knew he would have to bury it deep within himself if he were to take care of them. And that was what he wanted to do. What he should have done all these years....

The driver opened the door, and Natalie slipped in beside him, Richie on her lap. Nicolette collapsed into the seat next to her, staring out the window.

“Are you all right, Nat?” he asked quietly, laying a comforting hand over hers. He was glad when she let it keep it there.

She looked at him with reddened eyes and nodded, then turned back to Richie, who was snuggling against her, and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

Nick said nothing more, leaving them to their silence. He would be patient with them. He would be loving. And he would protect them.

He must. They were all he had.

They arrived at LAX forty minutes later. The limousine let them off at the TWA terminal. A skycap took their bags, and directed them to the check-in counter.

“Where are we going?” Nicolette asked. It was the first time she’d spoken to Nick since last night.

“Athens,” he said simply.

Natalie raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that too big a city?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, “ he replied. “It’s only the first stop.”

They were all too weary to question him further. And none of them, not even Nick, noticed the pale young woman listening to them with such interest....

Nick had never enjoyed flying, unless it was under his own power. His first transatlantic flight in a mortal state only served to remind him of that. Now he knew where the myth had come from that vampires don’t cross running water. But airsickness had been the least of it.

He’d arranged for them to have the four front seats in first class, thinking that it might give them the privacy they needed. Nicolette had hardly spoken to him since her outburst of the night before. She’d treated him with a strained civility; but at least she wasn’t being nasty. He’d hoped that during the ten hour flight they could get to know one another. But when Natalie had suggested Nicolette sit with him, she’d politely declined, saying she’d rather sit with her brother. Nick had tried to hide his disappointment, looking forward instead to the ten hours he would spend at Natalie’s side. But he soon realized that this was neither the time nor place for them to talk. And she’d finally succumbed to her exhaustion. She’d spent most of the trip asleep. Nicolette had alternated between sleep and reading a book she’d bought at the airport. And Nick couldn’t help but feel that she was keeping occupied expressly to keep him from bothering her. So he’d kept to himself for most of the trip, with his loneliness and upset stomach as his only companions.

Except for Richie. The little boy was a powerhouse of energy. And despite his lapses into quiet, when his father’s tragic death found its way into his thoughts, for the most part he was filled with excitement and wonder over what to him seemed a grand adventure. He’d never been in a plane before, and had wanted to run up and down the aisles, pouting when Natalie told him he couldn’t. So Nick had taken over. They’d gone upstairs into the first class lounge, where he could run around freely. He’d introduced Nick to all of his action figures, and Nick had learned that Batman was his favorite. Then, after pleading with a friendly stewardess, Nick had taken him to meet the pilots. They’d finished their play indulging in huge ice cream sundaes--Nick’s first ever. It hadn’t helped his stomach, but he didn’t care. Richie was full of life, of happiness, of affection. His vitality was infectious, and being with him made Nick feel alive, a part of humanity, a part of...a family. He hadn’t known how to approach this child, afraid that Richie might think Nick were trying to take his father’s place. But Nick realized now that the boy needed a friend, a male figure to look to, to keep his own grief from overwhelming him. And Nick loved being with him. He was like the son he had always wanted, but never imagined possible. And more than that. He was *Natalie’s* son. He was a part of *her*, and Nick could love him for that alone.

So as they finally walked through customs at Athens airport, Nick mused that perhaps the trip hadn’t been so bad after all.

He’d made a friend.

Janette stared absently at the patrons of her restaurant, sipping her blood-wine from a corner table. By now Nicolas, Natalie and the kids would be far away. A part of her wished she knew where. She was worried about them. Especially Nicolette, so strong and yet so fragile right now. She smiled to herself to think of her *little sister*. The little girl would forgive Nick, and grow to accept him. Janette knew it. And she hoped that the next time she saw them they would be a happy family. They all deserved that, after what they’d been through.

But would they ever be secure enough to grab onto that happiness that had been so elusive? Even if they did let Nick back into their lives, the danger would always be lurking near...

His shadow crossed the table before she saw him, and she started slightly.

“You no longer sense me.” There was a tinge of regret in his voice.

She looked up to see LaCroix, his icy blue eyes reflecting the same sadness. “It’s been a long time,” she observed. What a relief that he could no longer read her mind. She wouldn’t have been able to keep her knowledge from him. She was grateful again that Nicolas had not told her where they were going. Ignorance, in this case, was bliss. “What brings you here?” she asked pleasantly, motioning for him to sit down.

He slapped a newspaper down on the table. “I just thought it’s been a while since you’ve had your news delivered to you.”

Janette stiffened. His tone had changed at once, and a feeling of foreboding came over her, as strongly as if she had felt it through their former bond. She looked down at the paper, folded to a small story with an accompanying picture. She gasped. The headline read,. “Prominent Attorney Dies Suddenly. Wife and Children Disappear.”

“Do you see a familiar face?” LaCroix asked accusingly.

She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t. “So. Nicolas’ friend Natalie. She’s led a full life since she left him.” Did she sound casual enough?

“I don’t mean her,” he said impatiently. “I mean the child. The girl.“

Janette pretended to study it, but shrugged. “I’ve never seen her,” she lied, in a twisted way enjoying the fact that she could now.

“Don’t tell me you don’t see it,” he said.

“See what?” she asked, flashing her eyes at him innocently to maintain her facade.

“Don’t toy with me, Janette. The only thing that’s changed between us is that you’re weaker than you were.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, LaCroix. So Natalie had two children with this man. He died, and she apparently couldn’t handle staying here. So? Your point?”

“You know whose child that is, Janette. The only question is how long you’ve known--and kept it from me.”

“LaCroix, that’s absurd,” she answered quickly. “Nicolas could not have fathered a child. He could never have been with her without losing control. She most probably took up with this man out of frustration. Perhaps she was even pregnant with his child before she left. That would explain why Nicolas sent her away--and refused to talk about it. He was probably humiliated.”

Janette made a mental note that she should start writing fiction. She didn’t know where she’d come up with that one--but it sounded so good that LaCroix seemed to consider it for a moment. But then he shook his head.

“No. I find that scenario highly unlikely. She was totally devoted to Nicholas. I don’t think she would have betrayed him.”

“She was a *mortal* woman, LaCroix, running out of time. She had needs...” It sounded good to her.

“But she also had principles.”

Janette said nothing, but her face must have registered her surpirse. Was that admiration for Natalie in his voice?

LaCroix gave her but a second to attempt a response, but he had to know there would be none. Finally, he said, “No, Janette, I think you know as well as I that that’s Nicholas’ child. He sent her away so that no one would know. And now...” He motioned to the newspaper once more. “It would appear that he’s gone off with them.”

“You don’t know that,” Janette protested. Perhaps too much.

LaCroix looked her knowingly in the eyes. “Nicholas is gone. Are you going to try to convince me that this is mere coincidence?” His gaze became hard as she failed to respond. “I thought not.”

Janette felt utterly helpless. Even without his link to her, he knew her too well. Deceiving him would be impossible. Nick had known, and that was precisely why he had not told her their destination. She tried another approach. “All right, LaCroix. Let’s assume for a moment that you’re right--that Nick is with Natalie. That he’s found her again after all these years. You know how he’s suffered without her. Why can’t you just leave them be?”

“Because this is not about Nicholas and his mortal love. I could have destroyed her years ago if I’d wanted. Instead, I indulged him. But this--” He pointed to Nicolette’s photo. “This is a dhampir. You know that they present a danger to us. The Code calls for their extermination.”

“This *thing* you’re talking about is a little girl,” she reminded him, her voice filled with passion. “All right, possibly *Nick’s* little girl. He is your *son*. I know you love him. *If* this is his child--doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

She’d struck a nerve in him, and she knew it by his hesitation. His love for his son was his greatest strength, and his most powerful weakness. He looked at the photo, and she knew that he was seeing Nick in the little girl’s face. Not merely the resemblance, but the living being within . The quite mortal immortality that Nick had, against all odds, attained.

“The Code must be followed,” he said absently, still gazing at the child.

And Janette knew that she had to dare, “A Code you yourself have broken.”

He looked at her sharply.

“What is the punishment for a vampire who tries to kill his master?”

And LaCroix knew. It was death. Yet he had not killed Nick for what he had done to him fifteen years ago. He could not. And Janette was hoping to reawaken that love, that compassion, that had allowed Nick to live, that had permitted him to love Natalie...

But LaCroix’s defenses had shot up, and as he glared at her she knew that he would not be so easily won. “Your heart has grown too warm, Janette. Too soft. You must harden it.”

“No,” she said softly. “After nearly two thousand years, *you* are the one who must stop trying to deny your humanity. It’s in us all, no matter how deeply hidden. It’s the only thing that separates us from beasts.”

“And what is there to distinguish us from mortals then?” he challenged bitterly. “If we begin to think and feel as they do...what have we learned in our lifetimes?”

“To love...and to put others before ourselves.”

“That’s no way to survive,” he said, dismissing her. He stood from the table, as if suddenly agitated by the conversation.

Janette began to panic, wondering what he would do. She stood to face him. “Please, LaCroix, leave them in peace. I’m begging you.”

“You know where they are,” he charged angrily.

“No, I do not!” she responded with equal ire.

“Of course not,” he said snidely. “Why would they trust *you*?”

She fumed silently, vowing not to let him see that he had hurt her.

“It’s all right, Janette,” he snapped. “I have other means of finding out what I need to know. I don’t need you--any more than Nicholas does. ”

And he was gone.

She slipped back into her chair, finishing off her drink. And as she closed her eyes, she called out to Nick through their bond of blood, hoping against hope that he would hear her...For if he did not contact her, there would be no way to warn them.

LaCroix was on his way. And she had no doubt that he would find them.

They’d taken a flight from Athens to the island of Crete, the largest in the archipelago. Once at the airport near Iraklion, the capital city, Nick led them to the airfield where private planes were kept.

“You mean we’re still not there?” Nicolette complained tiredly.

“Almost,” Nick told her. “Crete is probably safe, much safer than Athens. But we can’t take a chance living here.”

Natalie waited until they were inside the small nine-passenger plane before asking anything more. She knew that he hadn’t wanted to talk about their final destination anywhere in public, lest someone should be listening. But once Nick took the pilot’s seat, any other questions she might have had were thrown on the back burner. “*You’re* piloting this plane?” she asked, showing more alarm than she’d wanted to in front of the children.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Nicolette jumped in.

He turned around to face them. “Don’t worry. I learned how to fly in the war.”

“Uh, what war would that be?” Natalie asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. She double-checked the seat belt on her sleeping son.

“Desert storm?” Nicolette asked, that being the most recent she knew of.

“Uh, no. World War I,” he said sheepishly.

“World War I?! Are you crazy? I’m not flying in this thing if you haven’t been a pilot for over ninety years!” Nicolette reached to undo her seat belt, but Natalie put a hand over hers.

“Wait.” She looked up at Nick. “Have you flown since then? I mean, in a plane?” she added, not without a tinge of amusement. The question was more for Nicolette’s sake. Natalie knew that he wouldn’t endanger them if he really didn’t know what he was doing.

Nick smiled at them reassuringly. “Yes. I had a plane in Colorado that I used to take out over the Rockies, just in the last five years. And I flew this plane when I bought it, the same time I bought the island we’re going to.”

“You bought an island?” Nicolette asked in disbelief, her concerns about his flying now gone.

“It’s a private island. It was owned by some eccentric millionaire--”

“It still is,” Natalie said quickly, trying to keep a straight face.
Nick shot her a glance, then laughed, glad to see her sense of humor coming back. “Very funny. Okay, are we all set?”

“Wait. Can I ask you something?” Nicolette had been eyeing their interaction strangely, as if not sure how she felt about it.

“Anything you want,” he said warmly, and Natalie could see his eyes light up at the fact that Nicolette was actually talking to him.

“Are you really a millionaire?”

He considered it a moment. “I don’t think of myself that way, but I guess you could say I’ve got a lot of money in the bank.” And Natalie could see some discomfort as he must have thought about how it had all been acquired. He added, “Enough to make sure that you and your Mom and your brother will always be safe.”

Nicolette seemed to take some comfort in that, but asked, “Then why...if you had all that money...did you become a cop?”

He glanced at Natalie as if looking for moral support, and she gave it to him with her eyes. “I wanted to try to do some good...to save lives...use my powers for good instead of evil.” And then, as if realizing he sounded too altruistic, he added honestly, “It was a way to try to redeem myself for all the...evil I had done in the past.” Somehow, he didn’t seem to be able to say, “for all the people I had killed.” It was something he must know his daughter knew, and yet he was ashamed to say it aloud to her.

Nicolette was silent for a moment, as if taken aback by a candor she had never expected. Finally she asked, “Why doesn’t Janette feel like she has to redeem herself?”

“Janette never saw herself as evil,” he explained.

“And you did?” she asked, not understanding.

He nodded. “I...was.” He’d lowered his eyes and Natalie’s heart went out to him. How difficult it was for him to admit these things to his child! She wanted desperately to jump in, to explain, to make it easier for him--but she knew she had to let the scene play out between the two of them. It was the only way they could truly make any kind of connection.

“But you’re not evil,” Nicolette said to him in a kind voice, and he raised his eyes to look up at her. “Maybe you did evil things...in the past...but just being a vampire doesn’t make you evil.”

“Maybe, but--”

“Does my being a dhampir make *me* evil?” she challenged.

“Of course not!” he assured her, totally taken aback by what she had said, and not wanting her to ever think such a thing of herself.

“Then you’re not evil either,” she concluded. “And anything bad that you did is in the past. And you’re sorry about it. So don’t you think you should stop beating up on yourself for it?”

Natalie saw him smile through his pain, and thought he would cry. For her words, her compassion towards him, had warmed his heart in a way that nothing else could have. He seemed almost at a loss for words, until finally he said, “You sound a lot like your mother.”

“Maybe that’s just because we’re both right,” she responded in an air Natalie recognized as her own.

Nick nodded, looking too moved to say anything else.

“I guess we’d better get going,” Natalie said softly. And as Nick turned back to the control panel, and Niki settled into her seat, she could see satisfaction on both their faces. It would take time for them to build a relationship. But this was a beginning. The start of something Natalie had only dreamed could happen one day. And for the first time in the last few days, she felt at peace.

His eyes blazed golden as he drank the blood, and yet the glass gave it an artificial taste that ruined his enjoyment of it. He needed to feel the pulse of the blood as it escaped through a young woman’s veins, the taste of her skin as he sank his teeth into the smooth of her neck, the pounding of her heart, the smell of her fear....

He set down the glass as her eyes met his. His hunger for her was stronger than ever, and yet the quest he had sent her on had to take first priority. For if she had found where Natalie was going, it was *her* blood that he might soon taste...that and the blood of her innocent young daughter....

Yes, perverse as it might seem, for he knew she was only a child...he wanted her. And the mere decadence of his own thoughts aroused him. What would it be like to take her innocence, her body, her blood...her soul?

“Did you find them?” he asked impatiently as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Oh, I know where they’re going,” she murmured, bringing her lips to his.

He kissed her, knowing this was part of the game. He gave her what she wanted...and she did his bidding in the daytime, when he could not. “Where are they going?” he whispered, running his hands through her hair, to her neck.

“No...first...” she breathed.

And he sank his teeth into her, satisfying the hunger that had been gnawing at him all night. But this time, he imagined that it was Natalie, just as it might have been all those years ago if Nicholas had not come to her rescue. And he took just a bit, as he always did. That was the only way to savor her over and over again. She protested as he pulled away, then grabbed his wrist and pushed it up to his face. He ripped at his own flesh, letting her feed from h