Looking upon the battlefield from a hilltop, the slaughter is evident. He himself is covered with gore, dirt, and the blood of other men. He has spent the last half hour alongside his brothers, delivering the final blow to those who lay dying in the field. Of course, these men had not been his own kills. No one could recover from a blow given by him.

He had viewed this scene many times before and so, it came as a surprise to him when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he looked, he lifted his face to the sun, closing his eyes as he sniffed the post-battle air. At first, he could only discern the scent of death, shit, and the sweat of humans. But faintly, he could smell something else. Something sweet like honey, with notes of cinnamon and woodsmoke.

He keeps his eyes closed, focusing on the direction this peculiar scent is coming from and he hears it. Faint, but sure, a heartbeat. It is steady and strong, full of life…and much faster than his own. A human then. He turns his head and sharp gaze to the southeast where this now incessant beating is coming from. It has only been a moment, and the human is still some distance away from him. His eyes widen when he notices this is a woman. An unexpected sight in this godforsaken place. No one else in his party has noticed or thought to care about this distant human, but he is drawn to that scent, that steady heartbeat that does not quicken in fear at the sight before her.

He slowly makes his way down the hill and ignores calls from his brothers and his men about where he is off to. He is the commander of this army and he will do as he pleases. As the middle son, it is not a role he expected, but one he has always had a natural affinity for. Strategy and bestowing death on his enemies are his contribution to his family. His older brother Hugh did not have the constitution for command, just following orders. Baldwin listens to no one besides his father who has played this war game from a distance.

As he approaches this strange creature, human that is, she is looking down at her hands and feet. They are covered in blood, some of it hers by the scent of it, but much of it is clearly someone else's. He finds this interesting.

Her hands are small and pale underneath the bright red blood that is quickly turning dark and hard on her skin. She is wearing a fine dress, but it is torn. She wears no shoes, which is why the bottoms of her feet are raw and bloody he assumes. Her hair is limp and dark with sweat and blood. This is a woman who has fought for her very life and has run for it as well. As he observes her, she begins to sway with what is clearly exhaustion. But before she can fall, Baldwin surprises himself by catching her by the waist in the blink of an eye. At this, the woman slowly raises her head to meet his gaze, silent and apparently resigned to her fate. He could do it. Kill her. Her life is quite literally in his can taste the scent of her on his tongue, the tang of her blood fresh in the air. However, he chooses not to. He finds he is intrigued as she meets his eyes with her own. He stops breathing for the slightest of moments. Though the sun had just gone behind a heavy cloud, a surprisingly fierce pair of eyes stare at him from a face as pale as cream and oddly bright in spite of the grime and sickly pallor of her skin. Eyes an arresting color of green capture him in their gaze. It as as if the emerald of the surrounding hills has been reflected on chips of pale grey stone. In all his long years, Baldwin has never seen eyes such as these.

He is nearly startled from his observation of her face when she suddenly speaks.

"You are the one." She says with conviction. He furrows his brow. How could she possibly know him? She must be mistaken. She must notice the confusion on his face because she speaks again.

"I've seen you. In my visions. You wear the same face but a thousand years from this day, and yet you remain the same. A warrior. A brother. A son. But never a lover. Never a mate." His eyes turn to golden fire at the utterance of this human. This witch? Surely he would have noticed.

"I am no witch. I have the blessed misfortune to have future sight and sight alone. I am a seer Baldwin." She sighs as she continues to sag to the ground. He looks at her incredulously.

"Speak then. Tell me of my fortune." He demands it. No one disobeys him and lives to tell the tale.

"I cannot tell you what you want to hear, only what you need to hear warrior. You will live a long and solitary life. A thousand years from now you will be the only member of your family who never finds their mate. And yet, she will come. A girl, then a woman, with magic in her veins. An ancient magic with no spells or weavings. A beautiful woman whose voice could bring the springtime and halt the mightiest of armies. A face who even you can not ignore. Her blood will be a song to your tired ears. A balm for the soul that never rests. The scent of it will be irresistible to you, but you will resist, if only to preserve her purity. You daren't touch her unless she break. You will try to stay away, but to stay away would mean death and sorrow for you both. Heed me in this, warrior."

Baldwin was as close to shock as one such as he could get. He deeply wished to ignore this woman, but her voice was clear and sure. Her preternatural gaze looked where he could not go. But he could, could he not? A small taste of her blood and he could see a glimpse of what she saw. Before she could convince him otherwise, and no doubt, she knew what he would do, he plunged his teeth, as sharp as any knife, into the soft skin of her neck. He would know the truth of this woman.

It is a sunny day. He sees the back of a woman with a mass of hair waving around her shoulders. It glints of honey in the sunlight with hints of copper hiding amongst tresses the color of freshly tilled earth. She turns her head and he sees the hint of a smile that seems to be directed at him in profile. She opens her mouth as if to call for him…and he is jerked out of this dream…this vision by the sound of his brother calling him. He looks back into the eyes of the woman he still has in his hold. She looks at him with disappointment, but resignation.

"Do not disappoint me warrior. You must not let your head speak for your heart as you have done before. As you will continue to do, until she breaks your hardened heart." At this declaration, this plea, he lets this mysterious woman fall to the ground. He hears footsteps behind him. From the scent, he can tell it is Hugh and Godfrey, his brothers.

"You will not speak of this to anyone." He declares as he continues to stare at the woman who is now on the ground, barely holding herself up.

"Of course, brother. Not even father will hear of this. At least, he will not hear it from us." Hugh says gently.

"Do you believe her Baldwin?" Godfrey asks, still as guileless as the day he was born.

"I did not…but she knows something…I saw it when I tasted her blood. Regardless, we will leave her in peace. As long as she promises to never speak of me again for the rest of her days." He attempts calm in the face of his family. He is barely able to achieve it after what he had just heard and seen. He finally tears his eyes away from her and turns to his brothers. He stops when she speaks once again.

"Do not forget vampire what I have said today. Her life depends on it…as does yours." She says as her steely gaze pierces through him. He continues to turn and walks away, leaving his curious brothers to trail behind him.

—

For a over a thousand years, Baldwin fights many battles, orchestrating the deaths of too many to count. He beds many women but never settles. Always restless. Always following the rules. When his father dies he thinks this is the last deciding moment in his life. It had been too long, he had missed her. He was too busy killing and maiming and scheming to heed the seer's warning. After his father's death he becomes an even more cynical version of himself. A dark presence in the corner of many a room. He no longer believes in his ability to meet his mate. The seer was wrong. Hugh and Godfrey had died in defense of their mates. So had his father. Matthew had nearly suffered the same fate due to his bleeding heart. He could not save them all, but he could save himself from that perilous fate.

But it was not to be so. When his niece and nephew are born, the stone around his heart cracks. These innocents will not be forced to see the evil parts of him. He does not care that to show them a modicum of affection would be to hurt his reputation as a heartless, soul-less bastard. He can show that face to the rest of the world, but he will protect these two with the fiercest part of himself. That part of him that never found his mate. Though he will never admit it, he respects his sworn sister and her love of her children. As someone who never had the chance to sire his own, he could only imagine the protective nature of a parent to a child.

Perhaps this crack in Baldwin's icy exterior was the opening he needed in order to find her. When Diana is called to Venice for an emergency Congregation meeting, he is almost relieved it is not he who must answer that call. He returns to his tower at Sept-Tours with only a slight hint that something was not right.

Later the next day, he gets a phone call. Of course, he is working at Philippe's desk so he answers immediately. Diana's voice is frantic. Matthew tries to soothe her in the background. Another woman had been taken by Satu, and most likely, it was another witch. Gerbert, the snake he is, claimed again to know nothing about it, though revealed that perhaps Satu would not be so creative with her location again. The whole plot stank of Gerbert but it would take months to compile enough evidence against him, if not years.

Almost instinctively, Baldwin goes to the same castle where Diana was held before he and Matthew had found her. It is a desolate and terrible place to die he thinks. He is not sure where this sudden heroic streak has come from, but it surprises him. He thinks it must be his sense of loyalty to his sister.

When he arrives, he can hear the sound of one woman screaming at another. He recognizes the voice as belonging to Satu. He quickly moves toward the sound and finds her screaming into a corner at another woman. His nostrils flare at the sharp smell of this blood in the air. A scent which reminds him of the new growth in spring, of wild ivy and meadowsweet, overtakes his senses. He does not hesitate when he knocks the screaming witch in front of him out with a single blow before she knows he is there.

The other woman before him does not immediately look up. She cowers from the bulk of his shadow as it moves at inhuman speed toward her. He slows his pace, holding out his hands in a peaceful gesture in an attempt to keep from frightening her further.

His eyes widen when he looks at her more closely. Her hair, her elegant profile, they look all too familiar to him. His slowly beating heart starts to beat a bit more quickly. Surely not. This can't be her. He becomes frustrated with himself and growls lowly under his breath…or so he thought. The woman must have heard him because she quickly jerked her head up to stare at him. Both fear and defiance shining in her eyes in challenge of him. He is taken aback by an eerily familiar stare. Eyes of an unusual shade of green greet his own amber gaze. A frantic staccato reaches his ears. She is scared to death. She is not the same woman he met a thousand years before, but she is clearly a descendant of hers. He had not encountered a pair of eyes like that since the first time he saw them. Was this a cruel joke being played on him? He shook his head infinitesimally to snap himself out of this ridiculous stupor and attempted to help the woman again.

"Who are you?" She said roughly, as if she had not had water in days. She probably had not based on the state of the place she had been held.

"My name is Baldwin. I am here on behalf of my sister to retrieve you." He said, businesslike in his manner as always. She frowns at the hand he has reached out. He takes a step back, allowing her to stand on her own. This effort fails her and he is quick to catch her, letting her steady herself on his forearms before pulling her away from the corner she had been huddled in for who knew how long.

"Thank you." She tells him simply, her limbs trembling as she begins to walk slowly with me to a place where they can exit. When the toe of her sneaker catches on a rock, she stumbles and would have fallen if not for his steady hand.

"This will be safer for you if you allow me to carry you." He says as they approach another pile of rubble. Her eyes grow hard. She does not like that idea.

"I will manage just fine." She utters defiantly as she jerks away from his gentle hold and attempts to climb up on her own. He watches until she nearly falls before he catches her once again. A faint blush covers her cheeks and he cannot help but to notice the smell of her blood closer to the surface. His eyes flash in warning as he gazes at her, one brow raised at her defiance.

"You will allow me to carry you or I am leaving you here." He murmurs lowly to her with another slight growl. His threat is empty, but his growl got her attention before and it does not fail this time.

"Fine." She utters with a tired sigh. He walks toward her and crouches down as he offers her his back. She hesitantly winds her arms around his neck and he nearly winces at the close proximity of the open woulds on her wrist. He can feel the warmth of her blood oozing into his shirt as soon as he lifts her up.

All he thought as he began to ascend the piles of rock, was that it was going to be a very long day.