Ties

[Saiketsu]

Reserved for rainshadowCK

He was smoking a cigarette loosely and had his feet up on Camille\'s dashboard. The night was clear and completely cloudless as the two vampire sped through the streets of the city, running red lights as if they were green. Pierre was cursing in French under his breath as he hit a pothole going sixty, a sound that the other vampire really enjoyed.

"Flick those ashes, Nick."
"Fuck off," Nikolai said absently, still enrapt in his own thoughts.
"No, I\'m serious. I don\'t want them on her floors."
And Nikolai flicked the cigarette, which was now half ashes, into Camille\'s little ashtray near the stereo which was blasting a mixed CD of AFI, Marilyn Manson, Korn, and Kanye West. It was typical for their car rides.
"You must get a hard-on from being a prick, huh?" It was good-natured and Nikolai enjoyed the sound of his voice as always.
"I\'m thinking about cutting my hair again," Nikolai said, completely and purposely changing the topic while eyeing the black-blonde hair that was hanging over one side of his face. The cigarette dangled from his fingers which was slung over his raised knee. "Cutting. Dyeing. I\'m not sure yet."
"You know it won\'t grow back." Pierre\'s eyes were glued to the road as he took a wide corner going fifty-five miles per hour.
"Yeah I know. That\'s why I\'m still debating." He took an empty drag on his pointless cigarette and flung it out the open window. "I need to know someone else\'s opinion."
"Well what\'s wrong with it now?"
"I dunno. Maybe I just need a change."
"Well I\'d suggest keeping it this way for as long as you like it. I think it looks fine just as it is."
If he had had the capability, Nikolai might have blushed bright like a fucking schoolgirl. Alas, all the warm blood had been drained from him about sixty-eight years ago along with the ability to flush red with it. Thank fucking God, Judas mused darkly.

The temptation to throw an arm around the back if the blonde\'s seat was strong, but not stronger than his determination to remain unknown to this beautiful French god. Pierre had no idea of Nikolai\'s feelings towards him -- and that was the way it needed to stay until the Frenchman enjoyed the sight of another man\'s dick nearing any part of his body. Nikolai sighed inaudiably. Pierre was hopeless and yet there he was again, craving his attention silently from the passenger seat. The younger vampire fiddled with the volume knob until Camille shook with the steady bass of "Total Immortal" by AFI.

His mind was completely occupied this night as the two vampires shot the shit for the car ride. It had been months since he had seen that prick of a mortal who called himself Laurent, and yet the horrid babysitters of Nikolai\'s mind still sat their with their painful hooks sunk into the soft flesh of his thoughts and memories. It was aggravating to say the least.

But what was worse was the event that he would force to transpire tonight, all due to self-preservation. Tonight, Nikolai and Pierre were on their way to go see Damien to get orders or something. Storm, that bitch of a cunt, would be there: exactly what Laurent wanted to see. He would penetrate Damien\'s castle and fuck them all over. Including Pierre.

Without meaning to, Nikolai threw a glance over at his closest friend, a look without emotion piercing his green, made-up eyes. It wasn\'t something that he wanted to do to him, but what else could be done?

"What the hell is up with you tonight? God, every time we go see Damien you start acting all fucking trippy on me." Pierre\'s face was smiling, and as the two pulled into a parking lot (going at a much lesser speed than before, "for fear of Damien\'s criticisms and concerns", Pierre had said with a smirk), Nikolai simply wanted to at least look at him in the way he couldn\'t for perhaps the last time. And without admitting it to even himself, he saw an image of himself kissing Pierre deeply. And Pierre kissing back. But he pushed it away as he got out of Camille, closing the door more gently than he would have for anyone else\'s car.

And still he didn\'t answer the question.

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm tapped the blank page of her sketchbook absently with the eraser end of a pencil, searching her mind for something to draw. She was anxious, to say the least, wishing with every fiber of her being that she was anywhere but at the apartment in this instant. The girl sighed under her breath, returning her gaze to the blank sheet of paper before her. Slow spirals formed beneath the tip of the pencil, varying in width and shade.

Damien had told her that Pierre was to be over in less then ten minutes. Pierre and that Prick, Nikolai. Not that she could have cared less about the younger one. Anger churned darkly within her, causing the lines under the pencil to darken substantially. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing valuable or good about him, and he was therefore disposable. Apparently Damien thought otherwise. What else is new.

The only occasions she had to deal with Nikolai, the two were at each other\'s throats. Twice was enough for her; the Akari wasn\'t in the mood for another fight. Not tonight. Especially not in the apartment. She was feeling unusually self-conscious, her drawings all over the walls and her back to the door. More then anything, she wished she had washed the walls of her artwork sooner. The last person she wanted looking at them was Nikolai.

If it had just been Pierre stopping by, maybe the girl would have put a bit more effort into her appearance. Since he was not coming alone, and it was only to discuss business, Storm didn\'t see much of a point. She wore the usual dark-pants-black-shirt-black-hoodie combo that she did on any other day. No makeup, she couldn\'t really stand the stuff. Anyway, Damien would have noticed she was trying to look nice for Pierre. Wouldn\'t want to make him angry over something stupid again.

Sooner then expected, she could feel the two exit the elevator and approach the door. Her eyes flickered black and she made an obvious effort to immerse herself in the spiral-tree drawing and ignore whoever was entering the apartment. The girl didn\'t turn around, even when Pierre stepped inside. She didn\'t have to turn to know that Nikolai had followed, she could feel him where he was standing.

The pencil scrawling stopped abruptly and the shadows that had been dormant until this point flared up violently inside of her, although making no outward indication. It was now that she turned slowly, eyes hiding her thoughts, to face the two guests. The urge to fight was powerful, multiplied by the newly awakened shadows who seemed to recognize the familiar threatening presence of the shadows of another. Laurent. It was his first. She was barely trembling.

Even as she greeted Pierre, her gaze remained locked on Nikolai, filled with black. What the fuck is going on?

[Saiketsu]

The inside of the elevator filled with Pierre\'s scent which Nikolai took the time to enjoy as the little room rose numerous stories. It was too short, however; before he was ready for it, the doors opened and his precious Jean-Luc stepped out into the hallway. For a brief moment Nikolai watched his completely-straight body move and sighed under his breath, just out of earshot for the other. Nikolai followed as if nothing had happened.

They arrived at a door which opened easily enough to Pierre\'s rapping at the door. Damien took his hand and welcomed his first fledgling into a brotherly hug. Nikolai, being the youngest and the only non-bloodline vampire in the branch of the regime, knew enough not to interfer or say anything until Damien offered his hand. The two shook hands of course, Damien\'s formal greeting as close to that cunt, whose scent was permeating through the room, as he ever wanted to be again.

Oh yes, of course he could see her, but refused to look at her, even as he noticed with some amusement that Damien\'s scent wasn\'t strong on her or vise versa. So maybe she wasn\'t the King\'s whore. The idea still made him smile.

And then suddenly, something lurched inside of his mind, the leeches drilling into his nerves. He stifled a groan, and ignored the wave of hot, displaced, confused anger that washed through him. Green eyes landed on black ones and the two caught each other in a stare down as they both realized that they both had the same shadows, more or less.

Nikolai felt that surge of concern pass through him as the shadows gathered and tore a fresh hole in his chest. As if he couldn\'t fight his own battles. He hadn\'t expected this, had never realized that the fuck would do the same thing to him that he had done to the cunt. He was having a hard time stifling a hiss, his lips parting into a sneer that opened his senses wider. The blackness was taking over his mind.



"Nikolai." He knew just how to keep his voice commanding, having centuries of practice with his unruly fledglings. "Is there a problem here, Nikolai?" Of course there was that slice of edge as Damien\'s silver eyes bore into Pierre\'s newest aquantaince. What an insolent whelp, he thought as those angry green eyes landed back on Damien\'s. He looked feral, as if there was something more animalistic in him now, several months after they had all just met. Damien could only shrug it off.

"Children," he murmured under his breath so only Pierre could hear. With a smile Damien watched as the Frenchman fetched his younger companion by the shoulders and directed him back to business.

On the agenda for tonight, Damien discussed his plans to move as slightly more than hypothetical, the gathering of younger forces to be trained, as well as money movement and some of the events which had occurred. Standard and dry.

Yet there was something that Damien simply couldn\'t put his finger on, something about Nikolai. It could have been the way that he kept his eye on Storm as if she were something that needed to be disposed of, it could have been the disturbing and unexplained difference Damien felt in his aura, it could have been his lack of attention to anything at all. He simply couldn\'t put a finger on it.

[The Cedar Witch]

The Akari did not avert her eyes. She scarcely heard anything that Damien and Pierre were discussing, and to be frank, it wasn\'t important enough at the moment. Storm had to press her lengthening fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep hers at bay. They gathered into something bigger and more threatening, an automatic defense that she had developed. The monster pushed waves of threatening anger across the room: a message intended for his alone, to stay the fuck away.

Traitor, she hissed inside, shadows lurching and begging to attack. He reeked of the Zalmric, even if the scent was older then she had expected. From his shadows alone she could almost see the memory of their last encounter. Flickers of it anyway. Visions that her own shadows had the ability to pick up because they were derived of the same material that his were fashioned from. It was enough to make her own memories surface, and the mere thought of any contact with Laurent again made her nearly gag.

It was astounding to her that anyone had even trusted Nikolai enough to let him this close to begin with. Especially Damien. Couldn\'t he feel that there was something going on, too? It didn\'t matter now. It was already too late. Surely Nikolai was to go running back to Laurent, like the good slave the Captain made of him, and tell him exactly where Storm was hiding. Why else would he be here then to act as a spy? Any information he would need to know could be learned through Pierre. Nikolai had no real reason to be here at all.

"I swear to fucking god," her telepathic message came vibrant and violent as she struggled to contain the shadows that were aching to breach the distance and destroy him. "If you are planning anything with him..." She couldn\'t finish the sentence with words, instead only finding it appropriate to transmit several strong feelings and images of pain and punishment, similar but not the same to what Laurent was capable of doing with his shadows.

[Saiketsu]

Nikolai smirked and Judas rumbled inside of his cage, banging on the bars with anxious expectations now that he saw the girl was there. "What?" He responded with a sly, seductive control that the leeches aided with. Laurent, somewhere perhaps miles away, was listening now, looking in on her. It made Nikolai, himself, sick. But being held against his will for the umpteenth time, Nikolai continued with his mental taunt with a pointed and deliberate pace. "What will you do, Princess? Will you tell your King on me when you two lie in bed together? Will you tell your Daddy that his son\'s best friend is being mean and making you cry." Nikolai smirked wider. "Go ahead. And I promise that I will bring him to you firsthand." He winked at her with that last glimmer of the Zalmric\'s pride, the blackness swelling in his mind.

Laurent was force-feeding him images of the cunt\'s rape, which filtered through the telepathic connection. The black hole in his chest widened with a bit of agony as Laurent smiled at the girl with Nikolai\'s mouth.



His eyes happened to flash up while his Sire spoke and landed on his friend. "Nick!" When the vampire finally looked at him, Pierre signalled for him to come back down to earth for his own sake. Pierre might not have had the preternatural abilities that Damien or Nikolai had, but he was close enough to his sire to know when he was getting pissed off with someone. And apparently Nikolai did not.

With some apparent reluctance, Nikolai returned back to the conversation, an angry look in his eyes. Pierre watched as Damien\'s eyes darkened on the youngest vampire, and Pierre frowned. If Nikolai didn\'t cool it, there would be a fight with Nikolai as the loser.

"What have you found, Nikolai?"
His eyes were still filled with hate, though controlled much more now. "There\'s been a recent rise of the Sacrement coven. I\'m not sure what they\'re about, what they\'re attentions are, but word down at Risk is that they\'re ancients that have been pulling strings in the city for decades, hidden or masked by the Oligarchy. Word on the street is that they\'re really the ones that own the city.

"So if you want anything done in this city, look at them." He paused for a moment. "You really willing to start a war with these types of people, Ace? I mean the city\'s run by ancients mostly, not even including the Oligarchy. How exactly do you plan to get by all of them?"

Pierre\'s eyes looked upon Damien as the vampire smiled wryly. "That\'s my business, Judas. Nothing to be concerned with as of yet. I can\'t make a move as of yet anyway."

And the conversation went back and forth, in perfect English for the sake of Nikolai. All three of them contributed information gathered, but Nikolai had the most to offer. Talk of money and how easily it could be gathered and moved. Orders were given and Pierre took a mental note of the things Damien wanted: stocks of guns, of bomb-making materials, of blood, or fledglings. He told Pierre to awaken all his fledglings and preepare them for training. Pierre had since lost track of the dozens of fledglings he had made. His mind fluttered onto one of his younger females, Ariel, with the dark blonde hair and shirts with low cuts. She was only fifteen years dead and she had the skill of a lioness when she hunted. He hadn\'t seen her in a few months and the thought had Pierre frowning. As Damien began to wrap up.

[The Cedar Witch]

How dare he, The comments Nikolai threw out at her were nearly enough to make her rip into a full transformation from pure rage. Especially the one relating her to Damien in ways that could never be more incorrect. She was far from crying, and being degraded to that of a child wasn\'t anything that she could take lightly. Not from anyone. And as much as she wanted to fire back a string of insults involving his lustful encounter with him, she could not. No words could form sentences in her mind, nothing but rage, hatred, and bitterness.

His threats did not fall on deaf ears. The last thing Storm wanted was for Laurent to be brought to her. That slightest hint of fear was enough to keep her silent. Damien couldn\'t know anything until they moved. She didn\'t want to see Laurent again. Not now, not ever. Feeling him move in her skin, through the shadows, was enough torture to last a lifetime and then some. All Nikolai had done was stirred up the monsters that she had tried ridding herself of in the first place. Nothing that would cause any immediate problem. At least, she hoped not.

The fangs that shifted into her mouth pierced the side of her cheek, drawing blood and causing a tinge of pain that wasn\'t as distracting as Storm would have liked it to be. She could feel the faint shifting of wings beneath her skin, and the shadows that pulled at the edges of her mind were not helping in the least bit. She was silently thankful that her skin hadn\'t begun to tint. That would have sparked a conflict for sure.

The girl wasn\'t blind. She could see Laurent watching through his eyes, feel him smile. It made her shiver in revulsion. Before he turned away to speak with the others, Storm sent one last, threateningly strong wave of blackness in his direction, just in case he missed how capable she was of doing significant damage. After all, he taught her how to use the shadows firsthand. And it was she who had nearly destroyed everything using them, once-upon-a-time.

The sketchbook became more of a distraction, though the only thing she found herself drawing were bloodied and mangled corpses. Things that lay in her dreams. Shadows that could not be contained edged their way out through her fingertips, wrapping around the pencil and guiding its movement. What they drew made her sick and she couldn\'t look at it anymore.

Relax. They\'re about to leave. Storm looked up, pitch black eyes watching the group as she listened intently to the ending of the conversation. The sooner Nikolai was gone, the sooner she could regain control of herself.

[Saiketsu]

The silent conversation that went on between Storm and Nikolai didn\'t go unnoticed. While he couldn\'t penetrate either of their minds unnoticed or even intercept a message, a quick glance over at Storm told him that they weren\'t discussing the weather. Something inside Damien sent up the red flag, and an uncanny feeling of defensiveness washed over him in regards to Storm\'s well-being. He eyed Nikolai with great intensity.

The two of them had, more or less, explained that there was bad blood between them. It had something to do with an encounter that they had had, where push came to shove and Nikolai’s throat ended up on the ground. Nothing about this knowledge soothed Damien’s mind; he needed both Storm and Nikolai on his side, on the same side. It was bothersome to try to keep the two of them separated, but he’d be damned if he let someone else’s brat of a fledgling warp any of his well-laid plans.

“Just get us out of here as soon as possible,” Pierre said in perfect old French, so that no one would understand even if they could speak the modern tongue. It had been a while since he had heard his natural language, and the sentence made Damien peer over at his first-born. Pierre’s blue eyes were serious as he showed his age and maturity, well above Nikolai’s. It made his anger subside the smallest bit. Pierre could read him well, and if he were anyone else, Damien would have been extremely disturbed by the idea. To both Nikolai’s and Storm’s dismay, the elder whispered a string of Old French (which sounded part Latin and unromantic) under his breath to his son, who only nodded in understanding.

“So, I want to know the name of every fledgling we have in our numbers and vice versa. Nikolai,” his mouth went somewhat dry as he spoke, as if he didn’t even want to think about what he might be asking, “if you’d like, as you are not under pressure to do so, you may include your fledglings in our—“

“I don’t have any anymore.” It was short and crisp, tinged with reluctant respect and attitude to boot. It seemed like a lie, but Damien couldn’t be certain.

Damien gave a short nod. “Alright. There you are, gentlemen. If anything else arises, you’ll be hearing from me. Enjoy the night, oh and Nikolai,” he said as the two of them were turning to leave. Judas turned slowly, a wry look on his face as his eyes flickered back from Storm, “keep your phone on.” It was a command, not a request and Damien took no effort to hide it.

[The Cedar Witch]

She didn\'t even strain her ears to attempt to catch the whispered French exchange between the elder vampires. Her attention was solely on trying to control the shadows that were racing through her mind. The girl silently allowed her mind to follow the pair as they made a move to leave, making no effort to acknowledge their departure--no, not even to Pierre. Her aura still sparked with anger as she sent one last pulse to Nikolai, as a warning or even a threat, but also as an acknowledgment: she would say nothing to Damien so long as her location was kept from Laurent. No words were exchanged between the two, but she followed them in her mind\'s eye until they had left the building.

Unconsciously Storm breathed a heavy sigh of relief, eyes still swimming in black and body still on high defense. She was so close to being free of him, Laurent, that she had led herself to believe that there was no way he could possibly penetrate the peace that had settled in her current living situation. Apparently, unannounced to her, the Captain had been hard at work attempting to infiltrate without her knowledge. Maybe Nikolai was a part of the fun. Stirring things up a little and falling behind the lines again. Waiting. Always waiting. Constantly watching.

Warily, the Akari threw an uneasy look toward the door, pencil still suspended between two fingers which were vaguely encased in a thin layer of shadow. The last thing she wanted to do was go through the rigorous removal again. Maybe it wouldn\'t come to that. She frowned, as though deep in thought, and affixed her attention to the sketchbook filled with drawings penned by something more sinister then herself.

[Saiketsu]

"Will do, Captain." Pierre saw that smug smirk and salute to Damien and felt as though he had done it now. The elder of the pair rolled his eyes and put a hand on his buddy\'s shoulder and pushed him out the door. Damien followed him with a string of curses which no one had to translate in order to understand before Pierre looked back at his irate master.

Pierre said his goodbyes to the other pair as Nikolai stood impatiently in the hall, but Damien acknowledged him with little more than a grunt of frustration while his \'sister\' didn\'t even seem to notice. The vampire sighed and left, noting how the door locked behind him.

"You know," Pierre\'s own voice was tainted with aggravation, "you keep that shit up, he\'s going to end up killing you." The younger vampire said nothing and perhaps it was better that way.

Nikolai had always been an upstart and he knew that better than anyone. In fact, Nikolai\'s wild nature was part of the reason that Pierre was initially drawn to him almost a year back. But what was a revolution without the Patriots? So Pierre had gotten to know him, and liked quickly what he saw, despite the attitude. Nikolai was passionate, if not crazed, about anything he found out. He was a good explorer and had the strings to pull. Sure he was rough around the edges, but it was those kinds of men that made an army: the ones who weren\'t afraid to get the blood on their hands.

And while nobody, including himself, wanted to see a fledgling army entirely compiled of Nikolai-esque soldiers march upon the city in order to start that revolution, Pierre was never opposed to a few upstarts in that army. Nikolai simply was higher up on the food chain than most would have ever dreamed of.

But as much of a pain in the derriere as Nikolai was, Pierre never found it easy to get too angry with him. Recently the two of them had been as close as brothers and he liked that. Sure, there were some aspects about the younger that Pierre couldn\'t understand or agree with, but he was able to overlook them enough to see the genius behind the make-up.

The younger was brilliant, even if he was a prick most days. There was something about him that was simply addicting to be around. Perhaps it was his freedom, his constant reinvention of the same wheel. Or maybe it was simply because he was the only fledgling he had met where blood wasn\'t on the top of his to-do list (though, Jesus, Almighty, did that kid gorge and fight for his dinner!).

The two of them had ridden the elevator in silence and were out in the lobby before Pierre knew what he was doing, Camille\'s keys in his pocket. His powerful ears picked up the sound of the car clicking even over the normal racket of the street.

"What\'s up?" It was the younger vampire, his green eyes looking at him intently under blue eye shadow, thickened liner and fake lashes. And Pierre used to think it was weird to look in his intense eyes. "Did I do something wrong here?" The prick smiled and stepped gracefully into the car like a chick.

"You know damn right you did, Nick." But he was smiling again, despite the bone he had to pick with him. "Now c\'mon. Let\'s go get us some chicks." Nikolai howled with delight, literally and Pierre found himself laughing as well. What a creep, he thought with a toothy smile.



If he had had anything in the direct proximity of his iron grip, Damien would have most likely thrown it at the youngest fledgling, or snapped it in half. "C\'est un vrai con, Pierre!" He said, pointing a finger at Nikolai as he left the apartment. That was what he really thought of his son\'s new friend, but the door was closed before he knew it and the two were gone.

The vampire sighed to himself, cursing in a mixture of French, Latin, and English, whichever word came out the fastest. He was so fed up with Nikolai\'s insolence and was on the border of calling Pierre up to tell him never to bring Nikolai back if he were going to act up again. Rubbing his face to ward off anymore frustration he took a seat on the nearby love seat.

"You ready to go out?" He asked after a moment, his head reclined back on the fabric. He had not forgotten that Storm needed to go out to the forests again to soak up the energy or however she did it. He\'d need to have her wakeful throughout the night. Hell, while they were out, he had decided only a few minutes ago, he may as well go talk to someone about that new headquarters.

"I\'ll assume it wasn\'t a particularly nice conversation the two of you were having. Should I even bother asking if you\'re alright? You do seem a bit... ruffled." His hands were off his face and genuine concern filled his features as he looked over at her. Her mood had changed completely, filling the small apartment with a feeling of hate and her own personal mix of heaviness that Damien could exactly differ at the present time. "What was he saying to you?"

He sounded nosy, and felt it too, but there was something in him that wouldn\'t let him get away without hearing the answer. It was peculiar to him, but what wasn\'t in this new life of discoveries?

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm glared. Not at him, but in his direction. She was having a great deal of difficulty trying to contain small threads of shadow that were leaking from her aura, fueled by the anger and hatred that radiated from her form. Technically, Nikolai hadn\'t said anything important. It was what she felt from him that mattered. The stench of Laurent that she should have smelled down the hallway before he even set foot into the apartment. Even now, she scolded herself mercilessly for not seeing it coming earlier. Not that it would have made any significant difference.

"Nothing worth repeating," her mouth barely parted as she forced the words through her teeth, clenching her fists tightly. The Akari could still feel that echo of filth in her mind, the faintest feel of his voice in her head. The stickiness of his aura sickened her. He had been with him not long ago. But it was what he had insinuated was going on between Damien and herself that drew the most anger from him. The fact that he was fucking around with Laurent only made her worried.

"Besides, he suggested I not mention it to you," there was heavy bitterness in her voice but she did not avert her eyes from the vampire.

[Saiketsu]

His eyes connected with hers and his casual nature had immediately dissipated. His tinge of Thirst was held at bay as his body went rigid as he stood. "And what would that be, Storm?"

Damien was furious; beyond it. How dare some brat of an immortal walk into his house and make demands of anyone, let alone Storm, the Lady incarnate. The nerve of this prick. His eyes, without meaning to, bore into Storm\'s due to the waves of anger and need for that fuck to atone for his trespasses.

[The Cedar Witch]

The girl met his eyes with demonic-ferocity, her mind already reacting to his tone as if calling a threat. Whereas she knew he meant her no harm, the shadows assumed otherwise, gathering at-the-ready at her fingertips. Damien\'s anger merely served to fuel her own, and perhaps loosen her tongue just enough to get her to talk with a bit less prodding then usual.

"What, don\'t tell me you couldn\'t feel it the minute he walked in?" there was a tone of accusation in her voice, something that wasn\'t meant for the vampire at all, but rather what derived from the rage that Nikolai had sparked. Yes, she was surprised how little Damien had felt from him, but it wasn\'t as obvious to others as it was to her. After all, her own had reacted, alerting her to what lay beneath his own skin.

"We need to relocate as soon as possible. Nikolai cannot be trusted." there was command in her voice that she scarcely recognized, not that she was trying to boss him around. Laurent would not upset this balance. Not after things were beginning to go so well. Her eyes began to soften with worry, lightening in color. Still, the Akari would not go into excruciating detail as far as the exact words that had been exchanged between the two. He did not need to suffer the same insult as she had.

[Saiketsu]

The look on his face was too commanding to be called an expression at all. His eyes had hardened and his mouth was set gravely. Of course he had felt something from the brat, but what it was he couldn\'t tell. It had only been his second time meeting Nikolai and Pierre had said nothing about it.

"Tell me just what the fuck is going on here, Storm." His voice was on edge. Several ideas were running through his mind, none of which made sense if Nikolai had followed orders just like Pierre had said he would.

Pierre had been plucking away at human life to gather his share to the empire for more than five hundred years. Never had he plucked a bad seed. Pierre was thorough in everything that he did in building the army, trained by Damien himself. So it didn\'t make sense to Damien just how the fuck Nikolai, who had been hand-picked, though not fledged, by Pierre himself, could possibly been a traitor to any sort of cause. Never ha he had a traitor in his ranks: his orders were clear to the \'T\' and traitors were given their second death. What was going so wrong that Storm could sense something and he, nor Pierre could not.

"I need to know what was said here. Now." His anger was building and his senses were becoming sharper, the pupils shrinking as he approached the island where Storm sat, face her. "Now," he repeated with his jaw set firm. "You accuse one of my men, you had damned-well have a good reason."



He didn\'t understand, not one bit.

The anger and wave of hatred that seeped through his veins at being so close to the bitch had melted away instantly once he was outside of the building. It was as if Laurent had released the anger, but kept the leeches there, still strapped to his mind and soul. "I gave you what you wanted, you fuck, now back off. Get these out of me."

No response, save for a slithering hiss of confirmation that the leeches were still there.

He had shown him the face of the building, the address hanging on the bricks of the foundation, the number of Damien\'s floor and the fucking girl inside of the apartment building. Where was the fucking reciprocation here? There was still the echo of the black hole in his chest, that leering smile, and that disgusting image of that bitch\'s rape, over and over and over again. It made him irate, to say the least.

He had done it: betrayed Damien, his fucking whore, and his best friend. So when was this going to happen? He had made it extremely clear to the vampire that all he wanted was a quick fuck and the girl. Now he had both of what he wanted, and Nikolai had nothing. He had betrayed Pierre. And for what? The echo of a black hole? Fuck that.

Fuck it all. His feet were back up on the dashboard and he even managed a smile as Pierre sang out loudly and off-key to Kanye West\'s "Homecoming", which Nikolai found absolutely darling. What a geek.

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm fell helplessly silent for a moment, watching his anger flair and surface in ways that she had become familiar with. And for whatever reason she felt completely secure, in that instant. As if fearing anything under his watch was a foolish notion to begin with. There was still a significant amount of anger in her eyes, barely under control. Slowly she raised her hand to show him, extending the shadows in a way that would make it visible to him.

"Do you have any idea what these are?" she asked softly, gazing at the things herself with morbid fascination. "It was once something that Laurent used as a method of control," she retracted the shadows with a look of disgust, and looked back to the vampire. The girl could still see the firm strength in his face, something that inexplicably made her relax further.

"Obviously," she continued in a softer voice, "I have taken control of them myself, to an extent. But by nature they react to any new shadows coming from an outside souse. They take it as a threat." Storm paused, as if unwilling to fully explain this him. "They reacted violently the second Nikolai walked in, and I could tell things were stirring in him.

"I spoke to him first. I told him that he better not be planning anything with...with him. And he said," her throat went dry, and she cleared it, deciding it best that she neglected to mention the name calling and rude insinuations. Through clenched teeth, the girl continued. "He said that if I told you, that he would take Laurent here himself.

"But I know that he could see. The shadows allow this...connection..." she shuddered, unwilling to explain the vision she saw in Nikolai\'s mind.

[Saiketsu]

Over the few months that Storm had been living in Damien\'s apartment, the two had come to talk of many things. She knew somewhat of his life with Lucretia. He knew partially of her years with Laurent. Yet there were some things that they did not speak of. Anything relating to Laurent was taboo unless Storm implied it, especially his name. But she never said his name, period. It was too strong to be pronounced in the apartment, too frightful to remember while within the walls of the small apartment.

But, unless his supernaturally strong ears were deceiving him, she had just said that unspoken name. This alone was enough to make Damien\'s hair stand on end, a hiss breaking through his lips. The vampire\'s hands curled into taloned fists and the eyes sharpened and glared at her in frustration.

Laurent Craiton. That embarrassment of a creature. No one could rightly call him a person, a mortal, a creature. He was an epitome of what Damien considered evil. The thought or inference of Storm being his... anything at all ...was sickening to the point of nausea. No, he was something that Damien accepted as part of her past, just as Lucretia had been part of his.

But Laurent wasn\'t simply a part of her past. He was her hunter, her captor who, by some miracle, lost his prey. And from what he was beginning to understand first-hand was that that fuck was relentless.

There were orders sent down the line, given to every single elder to pass on to everything single fledgling by fear of death straight from Damien or Pierre himself. Laurent Craiton, or Adam, was not to be touched, spoken over, spoken with, or ignored. Sightings of this beast (and he was given enough publicity their telepathic messages transcribed by both Storm and Damien down the telepathic networks) were to be immediately reported to the elder  vampires, for fear of this exact thing.

So, if it were at all possible, Damien would have grown pale. For a long vampire\'s moment, he froze. The blood inside his veins felt like ice as the pieces fell into place. Laurent was inside of Nikolai. Nikolai was inside of this apartment. Storm and Laurent...

He knows where she is.

Damien was speechlessly horrified. He had spent four months sheltering Storm from the forces of her past which seemed to be forever invading both of their plans of freedom. And now that was all at risk. Laurent, the thorn in all of their sides even if Storm didn\'t remain in Damien\'s possession, knew about where Storm was, and only God knew what else. Nikolai was going to pay for this. "Fuck," Damien hissed through grit teeth. Single handedly, this one mortal could destroy the entire army, the entire movement that Damien had helped to build more than nine hundred years ago.

There was no way he would let that happen, not now, not after everything that he had been through to build, to lose Lucretia, to find her again in Storm. There was no way he\'d lose her to another man\'s lust for power and property. Not Storm.

His cell phone was in his hand faster than he had ever grabbed it.