Crossroads

A/N: I don't own Underworld or any of its wonderful characters.

Ok, so this is the shortened version of the Rise of the Lycans movie. I trust my readers are familiar with the source material, so I did not delve into every scene of the movie. This is a broad overview, focusing on scenes critical to the emotion and plot. You can fill in the blanks I skipped. Also, there will several different paths to choose from at the end of this story, just for fun.

Enjoy!

(Below are lyrics from a Decyfer Down song "Burn Back the Sun." Very good.)

Burn back the sun

Bring back the fire ones

Blazing inside this hollow cage

Burn back the sun

You were the only one to love me

With passion's quiet rage

Luka watched her mistress primp in front of the mirror with a mixture of disapproval and fear. Even as a dewy-eyed girl of sixteen, the potentially deadly consequences of Lady Sonja's forbidden love affair with Lucian had not been lost on her. But then, the sheer romance of it made her juvenile heart swoon. Now as a woman of six and twenty, Luka saw how the danger had intensified. Lady Sonja's pride was as brilliant and hard-edged as a diamond, and she chafed against the strictures Lord Viktor imposed. It was out of sheer pique that she now ran to her lover's arms instead of the council chamber where her father waited.

"The dress, Luka. The silver one. It's his favorite," Lady Sonja tossed the words over her shoulder, nearly giggling.

Luka rose, walking on wooden legs to Lady Sonja's wardrobe and removing the gauzy silver dress she asked for. If only her mistress wasn't so incandescently happy. Then maybe she would listen to sense! Luka's lips pursed in a frown. Lord Lucian should know better! Luka expected such flagrant disregard for authority from Lady Sonja, but Lord Lucian should know better than to risk Lord Viktor's wrath! Both of them were so blithely ignorant of just how far Lord Viktor would go to stop it.

Lady Sonja shimmied into the clinging silver dress and pulled the necklace her father had given her out to rest brazenly between her breasts. The faint smile faded and her eyes flashed that deadly blue upon noting Luka's expression.

"Enough, Luka! I don't need your judgment, your sullen glances. My father calls me to heel, as if I were a dog! I go to be with my husband. Find something to occupy yourself." With a cold whisper of air, Lady Sonja was gone.

His heat pulsed like a beating heart, surrounding her in its searing life. Sonja braced her hands on the rough stone, struggling against the pleasure to stay on her feet as Lucian thrust into her from behind. She arched her back, hungering for more contact. Her body knew and welcomed his intrusion, squeezing his length with jealous spasms. Her husband's arms wrapped around her, touching her breasts, her belly, enveloping her own cool touch with his blazing heat. Warm lips and the faint prickling tickle of his beard touched her ear, his low voice whispering husky endearments. He saturated her senses, body wild under the persuasion of his touch, nostrils breathing in his spicy-sweet, masculine scent, eyes and ears rapt with the sight and sound of him. They made love in potent silence, locked in wordless yielding.

Lucian's strong, callused hands moved to her hips, holding her still and he rammed into her. Climax loomed for the both of them, she could feel it. Undulating waves of sensation broke over her, pleasure exploded behind her eyes with all the colors of a sunrise. With an inarticulate sound of surrender, of wanton, fleshly pleasure that she loved so much, Lucian came inside her in hot spurts. Sonja sighed, flushed and glowing inside and out. He kissed her hair, the column of her neck, her cheek, sweetly nuzzling. He removed himself from her and she tightened her thighs, feeling the hot trickle of his seed. Sonja turned and linked her arms around his neck.

"I love you," she whispered, cupping his cheek. Even her fingers delighted in the textures of him, tingling at the stiff-soft strands of his beard. Lucian smiled that sweet little smile that he only gave to her. Lucian turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand.

"And I love you, Sonja." How empty her life would have been without him!

Sonja rested her cheek against his chest and listened to the music of his heartbeat and breathing, completely contented. Lucian unlocked some hidden door within herself and with him she felt whole and beautiful and loved. It made closing that door that much harder when she rejoined her own kind and saw the sophisticated savagery, heard the poisoned flattery. She felt the change in his embrace, the thrilling masculine stirring of his body. And they began the oldest of dances anew.

Something was troubling his wife, Lucian thought. It was a small part of his mind, one that could barely focus, not with her hands and mouth and body rousing him to such mad passion. Long white fingers danced down his chest with a hint of nail and his skin twitched and shivered in joy. Lucian's hand tangled in the soft hair at her nape and pulled her head down for a kiss.

Lucian was well-attuned to the slightest change in her mercurial moods. Desperation tinged her caresses, defiance lurked in her kisses. Did she feel as he felt, that their time was running out? The uneasy balance that had existed for the past ten years, years spent in hiding, in waiting, studded in moments of unparalleled passion, threatened to come crashing down.

At the fulcrum of this balance was Sonja. The chains of her obligations were pulling her opposite directions: on one side was Viktor and with him the heavy links of duty and kinship, Lucian stood on the other, with only love to tether her to him. The burning thread that linked them thickened into a cord, a rope, a chain as the years passed and as he fell deeply, hopelessly in love with her. By the moon, if he was a better man, he would release her from any obligation—free her. Lucian's arms tightened around her torso, burying his face in the cradle of her neck and shoulder as she rode him. But he was not a better man. He was selfish enough to cling to her and possessive enough to demand the same.

Lucian sat with his legs curled beneath him and Sonja straddling his lap, their bodies joined. Her mouth devoured his, hands sliding over his chest and back. Lucian groaned as tight inner muscles clenched; her body a live wire as her climax ravaged through her. A sultry smile touched her lips, one that made his throbbing cock ache along with his heart. It had taken them many years to learn to fully trust one another, to play. Pliable as he only was with her, Lucian let her push him back, arms spread in empty air. Haloed in moonlight above him, she looked like an angel. Sheathed inside her warmth, Lucian let himself go, lost within the depths of her blue eyes.

Tannis felt Viktor's anger gather, a palpable chilling of air upon seeing his daughter's empty council seat. A stab of envy struck him, feeding the fire of resentment that smoldered in his belly. Only Viktor's headstrong daughter, born into privilege, would so easily toss aside what he coveted. Coloman's mocking words rang in the air.

"She seems to have been needed elsewhere," he drawled, a mocking smile curved thin lips. His unspoken sally rang in the air, a dubious allusion to Lady Sonja's many other absences and pithy excuses.

"Find her," Viktor ordered in a fierce undertone.

The envy blossomed into umbrage. The daughter of privilege, and he, fighting fist and fang for the crumbs of Viktor's table! He bowed to the council and exited, his flowing robes flaring as he walked. A human servant made the mistake of crossing his path and Tannis shoved him with a negligent push. His head struck the stone wall with a wet crunch.

Like a pathetic errand boy, Tannis wandered hither and yon in search of Lady Sonja. Her horse was still happily chewing hay in the stables, so she had not ventured another foray into wolf-infested forest. Tannis enjoyed a macabre fantasy of her caught between two snarling werewolves, her screams for help shattering the spring night . . .

"My lady?" he called, rapping on the door to her chamber. He found it ajar. The heavy teak door opened with an ominous creak at the light touch of his hand. Usually Lady Sonja's little human maid was bustling about tidying the room. But the opulent chamber was empty. A small frown touched the narrow features. Tannis ran his tongue over the shapes of his fangs.

Where could the little princess be hiding?

Tannis considered returning to the council chamber, but quickly dismissed the idea. It was the height of folly to return to Viktor without results.

A fruitless hour passed.

Then another.

Frustration strangled him. Tannis stalked about the deserted courtyard aimlessly. Let her rot wherever she hid! He thought savagely.

Tannis ducked behind a stack of barrels at a stealthy movement. The last thing he needed was the scorn of one of the Death Dealers. The tension relaxed upon seeing Lucian emerge from his forge. He could almost call what stirred in him to be respect, if such a thing was possible between a vampire and Lycan. Tannis' part in the making of Sonja's sword had not gone unnoticed. Now, every experienced Death Dealer's blade was thus outfitted with his silver discs. Tannis gained favor with his ingenuity, just as Lucian had gained favor for the blade. From what he observed, Lady Sonja never rode without it.

Lucian flicked his fingers, as if summoning someone. Tannis' brow lifted. A tryst if he had ever seen one. He hadn't known the Lycan's proclivities veered toward the same sex. After the escapes attempts and dangerous potential for more pups than the Death Dealers could handle, Viktor had put to the sword all the female Lycans. Thirst flared in Tannis' throat at the memory of all that rich red blood staining the flagstones and the death wrought on any who protested.

Now it seemed Lucian had found a lover among his own kind.

The sinuous form stepped into the faint moonlight and Tannis' eyes widened in disbelief.

Lady Sonja.

Some part of his brain would have found some innocent reason to excuse this atrocity, but as she stepped past him, Lucian snatched at her fingers in one last caress. Their eyes met for a significant moment, pregnant with all the emotions that thickened the air between them. Then Lady Sonja was gliding off on silent feet. The slit along the side of her silver dress parted to show a length of creamy thigh, dispelling any doubt as to the sexual nature of her and Lucian's union.

Tannis stepped back into the shadows to contemplate the treasure just gifted to him by the benevolent Universe. This information was the key to all of his ambitions. All he had to do was wait for the opportune moment. With this rumor, he could even force Viktor to step down and become Elder of the Coven himself.

Yes, everything would be different now.

"It's sharp, no wolf will stand before it," Lucian said tonelessly, eyes meekly downcast. Sonja accepted the sword he had forged for her and slid it home. No matter how delicate and dangerous the game they played, Sonja always relished these stolen moments. She turned to Cai who had followed her with all the simpering adoration of a puppy for the past ten years.

"Ready the horses," she demanded in the ringing, haughty tones of Viktor's daughter. She turned back to find Lucian intimately close, she could smell his sweat and skin. Concern blazed in his blue eyes.

"Let someone else go," he urged. Sonja frowned.

"Why?" His eyes shifted behind her. She sensed Cai's presence and met his eye, nodding crisply. When they were alone again, Lucian continued.

"Last night, after I left you . . ." he trailed off, grimacing. His hand lifted to touch her face, but he remembered where they were and it dropped to his side.

"Just let someone else go."

His concern touched the proud, prickly part of her nature and she stiffened, shrugging it off. A small voice in her head wondered at the hypocrisy. She demanded that he not use the key he made, out of concern for his safety. And now, with an almost identical request, she was miffed by his worry.

A smirk curled her full lips.

"In case you haven't noticed, blacksmith, I am quite capable of looking after myself." She paused at the door for one last look at him, softening the blow of her words.

"Besides, you can watch over me from the wall."

Through the terror coursing in his veins, the sheer wild strength of a cornered man who had nothing to lose, Raze dimly realized he was going to live. The snarling wolf-beasts that populated the terrain of his childhood nightmares now rose to vivid, stinking life. Their flesh was hot and heavy beneath his striking fists, their breath rank and moist as dagger-like fangs snapped at him. The others, the things that looked human but moved too fast with white fangs glinting in the moonlight, were fighting like demons to drive the wolf-beasts back. One, the woman, looked like some fearsome pagan goddess.

Raze looked toward the trees and whatever fragile hope he had shriveled and died. There were too many. Raze heard hoofbeats and he looked up to find a lone man galloping from the forest. One man? He would be slaughtered with the rest of them! Raze lost himself in the rage and the fear as he swung the chains that imprisoned him, improvising a crude flail to keep the wolf-beasts at bay. A black form tore the slave behind him to pieces. Raze could feel the blood splatter on his naked limbs.

"Lucian, no!" cried a female voice. Raze turned to find the warrior-woman sprawled on the ground, looking up at the man. A small metal object fell to the ground, but Raze did not have time to wonder what it was. Raze watched with a mixture of disgust and awe as the man's skin ruptured, sinuous muscle bulging and snaking to cover lengthening bones. Black fur and white fangs burst into existence as if by magic. His roar rang defiantly in the air, stopping every wolf-beast in their tracks. Before Raze's wondering eyes, they retreated. Hope surged through him.

He would live.

Tannis now saw the world through new eyes. Every word and glance held a different meaning and he relished being privy to the secret. Hazel eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Lucian in his Lycan form. What a naughty little pet he was! How had he removed his collar? Now he had more to worry about than a wayward glance, as Tannis had warned him when Lady Sonja had ridden out.

A Death Dealer from Viktor's approaching party fired two crossbow bolts into Lucian's back. The monstrous form buckled with a yelp and Sonja couldn't stem the most visceral of reactions upon seeing her lover in pain.

"No! Stop!" she commanded, hurrying to his side.

Two sharp yanks removed the bolts embedded in his flesh. She straightened as her father approached, a mirror to him in his severe posture and vivid blue gaze. The devotion that existed between Lucian and Lady Sonja, so stark and naked under Tannis' knowing eye touched some place in his chest, near the heart that no longer beat.

"He did it to save me," Lady Sonja explained hotly. But Viktor had eyes only for Lucian. The vampire lord delivered a vicious backhand across his recalcitrant pet's face. Tannis watched Sonja's face. She had regained a measure of her poise, her flinch as the blow fell would only be perceptible under a scrutinizing eye—like Tannis'.

When Viktor dismissed her, Tannis stepped forward and laid a hand on her arm. Murder was written in her features, brilliant anger shimmered on her skin. But she followed him without demur. He waited for her to look back at her lover, lying supine, naked and bleeding for saving her life.

She did not.

"For removing the collar, thirty lashes!" shouted Dorian. The glinting silver tips of his whip rattled on the flagstones. Tannis lifted a brow as the vampire foreman whispered something in Lucian's ear. He saw Dorian's leering grin and recognized the gleeful expression of an enemy getting retribution.

Coloman and Viktor squabbled over the terms of the punishment, the former reeking of fear with the hordes of Lycans looking on, and the latter a towering mountain of fury. Tannis knew Lucian was lucky to be alive.

The whip rose with a trilling whistle, then came down across the exposed Lycan's form with a ringing hiss. He cried out and Tannis eyes flashed blue at the scent of suffering and red blood.

The whip rose and fell again and again. Tannis could actually hear Lucian's flesh ripping beneath the onslaught of leather and metal and sheer brutal force. A few strokes in, the Lycan's cries grew markedly quieter. Tannis frowned, then noticed how the Lycan's gaze was fixed unwaveringly on something. He turned and found Lady Sonja's window, with a shadow outlined in the green glass.

Ah, their love transcended even the petty concerns of the flesh! Lucian quieted his screams of agony to save her pain, and Lady Sonja in turn provided silent succor. She was with him in his torture, feeling every lash as if it were her own. Tannis imagined her strong features stained with tears, full mouth a grim line of determination as she listened to the whip, the tearing flesh, Lucian's pained cries. A smile curled Tannis' lips, absurdly touched by this hidden display. The entire gamut of it: Sonja's betrayal, Lucian's inconceivable love, Viktor's blind ignorance, all of it titillated and delighted him.

Yes, it would make a fine story, especially when it reached its inevitable, deadly conclusion.

All of Xristo's hate coalesced in one shining nub in the center of his chest. He and his Lycan brothers were forced by armed Death Dealers to watch Lucian's meteoric fall from grace. Scourged for saving Viktor's little princess! Beaten within an inch of his life for a good deed! How the vampires could miss the most obvious reason filled him with bemused scorn. Why else would he risk his own life, and spend his chance at freedom to save her? Any other Lycan would have watched with glee as the werewolves destroyed

Lady Sonja, Viktor's daughter.

But she had bewitched him.

Lucian, the best and strongest of the Lycans, brought to his knees for loving a vampire. The irony of it twisted in his gut.

Xristo stepped forward, intent on ripping off Dorian's head—the same vampire that had been so intent on beating him. Lucian had saved him and earned the vampire's hate. Xristo forgot his envy of Lucian. Being Viktor's favorite had not saved him here. The butt of a crossbow came down on the back of his head and he fell to his knees. Sabaas knelt beside him.

"Courage, brother," he whispered. Xristo looked up at Sabaas and saw all his hate and anger reflected. They rose together, united in their silent, unwavering support of their leader.

Viktor strode across the hall to where his daughter stood, sipping blood and contemplating the roaring fire in the grate. His emotions twisted and struggled together inside him: at Lucian's betrayal, Sonja's audacity, and Janosh's imminent arrival. The only evidence of this conflict was the slight fluttering of his jaw, the icy force of his gaze.

So much depended on the outcome of this exchange.

Viktor's suspicions burgeoned and swelled, bolstered by her behavior in the clearing. But she had not protested his punishment, fueling the fragile flame of hope. The bloodied mess that remained of Lucian's back filled him with a gratified rush of pleasure. Justice was done this night, and mercy. The pup should be grateful he still lived!

With quiet grace, Viktor stalked behind Sonja, willing her to turn, look at him, confess. Her back remained resolutely turned, heartbreakingly striking and proud in her bearing.

"Your concern for Lucian was most touching. A slave," he snapped, unleashing the brunt of his seething anger. She remained unmoved by it, as only she could be.

Alkaline to his acid.

Sonja sipped deliberately and Viktor watched the muscles of her throat flex as she swallowed. A swift bite at her delicate throat and all her secrets would be laid bare. No, he told himself, that would be a last resort. Viktor knew he could not bear her look of betrayal if his suspicions proved false. The scent of warm blood wafted on her breath as she spoke.

"He had just saved my life. Was it not you who told me to show a little gratitude?" she drawled, as if explaining a simple fact to a dull child. Viktor's teeth grated together.

"And yourself? Have you no gratitude for the one who saved your daughter's life?"

"I am awash with it," he shot back, venom injected in the words, "that he lives shows the breadth of my magnanimity. Were it any other circumstance, I would have had him fed in pieces to his own kind."

The vampire Elder watched his daughter's face carefully, searching for one iota of discomfort. There was none. Instead of relieving his fears, this merely thickened the miasma of doubt and suspicion. Sonja was his daughter. Her thoughts were not constrained to the muscles of her face, he thought with no small amount of pride. The firelight washed her face in warmth, like the living glow given by the sun's kiss. Viktor now saw her as she would have been, had she been born human. Sonja turned slightly toward him and he was absurdly reassured by her white skin, the pallor of a vampire that matched his own. She was still his, the child of his body and heart. Her steady hazel gaze slithered away, returning to the hypnotic dance of golden flames.

"But his punishment is now over. He will be freed," she said carefully. A harsh fist curled around Viktor's innards, erasing the tenuous feeling of security.

No!

"Freed? Your judgment is clouded, Sonja." He turned fully toward her, challenging. She was unaffected, sipping with unceremonious deliberation. Violence built within him. He wanted to dash the jeweled chalice from her hand and shake her until she saw reason—his reason. Instead his voice lashed out with the same brutal precision of Dorian's whip.

"We do not keep order with sentiment, Lucian was forbidden to remove his collar, and yet he did so. For however fine a reason. He will remain in prison. A cautionary tale." He paused, waiting for a rebuttal, a reaction to the veiled suspicion of his words.

Quiet, stolid defiance greeted him, the strong features set in polite indifference, as if he was remarking on the weather or the contents of an armory. Viktor's habitual frown deepened. His reckless, precocious, fierce daughter would challenge, fight and infuriate him. It was uncharacteristic for her to remain to so silent under the full weight of his judgment. A deft maneuver, he thought. In the heat of emotion, mistakes were made, slips in logic or defense. She stymied him in her silence.

"Janosh and the other nobles will soon arrive. Your presence is expected."

Cool logic did little to still her fears or quiet the ravaging anger and guilt that lashed within her with all the violence of an inferno. Sonja's eyes slipped closed for a brief moment, remembering with the surreal clarity of life's most awful moments the exact sound of the whip coming down on Lucian's back, his half-stifled cries. All she could see was her father's stern visage, narrow and sharp like a great bird of prey, circling, waiting for the last dying heave of breath. She maintained her poise by the thinnest of margins, only long enough to slip away, to melt into the shadows and turn her steps toward the prison.

Raze leaned his bald head back against the cold stone, content to doze for a few moments. The rough rock was cold and its chill seeped through his skin and clothing to freeze his muscles. Skimming the surface of dreams, he could forget the thick walls, the bars, the monsters that now peopled the world. Dimly he heard the soft burr of Lucian's voice as he spoke to one of his brothers and the tight ball of fear that pressed insistently against his breastbone relaxed and dissolved. He spoke with such calm authority, a steady and quiet charisma.

A puzzle, that man.

A Lycan, as he called himself, a human, but also . . . one of them. Raze shied away from the image of those cursed creatures, men bitten and turned to snarling beasts of untold savagery. Yet Raze respected and liked Lucian. He was a kindred spirit, a brother of the soul as his people called them.

Lucian's voice cut off mid-sentence and Raze opened his eyes. Lucian clamored to his feet, the pale expanse of his back marred by fading marks. Another fascinating glimpse of his strange race—had any other man taken a beating like Lucian had, he would be dead. But Lucian was well on the way to healing in a matter of hours.

A shadow slithered across the floor, a cold whisper that teased the back of his neck. Even after thousands of years as rulers of this world, humans still remembered instinctually what it was like to be prey.

"Lucian!" hissed a female voice, hushed into whispering tones. The last time he had heard it, she was calling out a warning in a voice tight with desperation and fear. In the light of a flickering torch, Raze glimpsed her in profile and was smote, both by her beauty, and by the expression of loving joy in her eyes, the kind of frantic passion the plucked at the heart and burned in the belly.

"Sonja," Lucian summoned her.

The lovers met at the bars. Raze watched in fascination as Lucian's calm, forbidding mien transformed into a look of such love and tenderness that Raze's great heart pined for the wife he had lost a day long since on a windswept plain. Lucian reached through the grate to grasp her hand.

"You should not be here," he chided, the joy in his smile and the strength of his grip belying the stern words.

"I had to! My love, I'm sorry. Your back-" a Lycan from an adjoining cell provided a blanket and Lucian shrugged it across his shoulders.

"No, I'll be all right."

"This is my fault. If I had not gone out-" Raze was surprised when Lucian cut off this tide of self-recrimination—completely justified in his mind.

"Then you would not be who you are." Lucian's grimy hand touched the pale perfection of her cheek, "This is not your fault."

Of all things, Raze felt jealousy stir inside him. True, from what Lucian had told him of the politics of this world, the careless brutality the vampires affected, and the seething anger on behalf of the beautiful woman's father, he knew their love was doomed to fail. Fated to end in death. But the tragedy of their love was overshadowed by the truth of it, the depth of their connection and their desperate courage. While Lucian's Lycan brothers turned their backs on her in disgust, Raze found sympathy and kinship with her—the vampire whose name Lucian said with such reverence.

Sonja.

Her thoughts jumbled, bouncing and slamming together like bees in a bottle. She cast a glance at Tannis, who stood at her father's left hand.

He knew.

Her acquaintance with Tannis told her that he would have killed his own mother for more power. Why now did he hold his tongue? Certainly not for her sake. Whenever possible they traded looks of scorn and venom laced polite platitudes. No, not for her sake. And whatever tenuous respect he held for Lucian would not bear a secret as monumental as theirs.

Why then, for stars' sake, had he told her father?

She survived council, watching with uncaring eyes as her father killed Janosh. The impertinent fool, he was greedier than his father Hermun before him, and resented their tithe of silver. Sonja's jaw clenched. They had paid that tithe in blood trying to protect Janosh's lands as well as their own. Her Death Dealers were spread very thin. Sonja stopped herself with a grim smile. But then again, they were not her Death Dealers, were they? As the years passed, her position as First became a title only. Their loyalty was first and foremost to Viktor.

His methods in dealing with these humans were a bit crude, she noted clinically. A testament to the state of his temper. She would have to tread very carefully. The other nobles were sufficiently cowed and gave their tribute without demur, Janosh's lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. The rich scent of a vampire's natural prey roused her thirst, even though she had slaked it with pig's blood upon her return from the forest. Words of fealty ran together and the hours of the night slipped away.

As the nobles—both human and vampire—filed out of the chamber, two Death Dealers dragging away Janosh's body, her father blocked her path. Her eyes traveled up from the tailored black boots, following the robes and coat, both of the finest fabrics, stiff with embroidery. Her father had excellent taste in fine things. For all of his shrewd severity, he luxuriated in the finery that he was afforded as the vampires' warlord. His hair, blond in the youth centuries gone, was combed back, startling blue eyes heavy on her.

The child in her was torn by warring desires. Part of her wanted to glare defiantly up at him and an equally large part wanted to embrace him and feel loved. But she had only ever had her father's love when she obeyed his desires and plans for her life. Lucian was the only one who ever loved her for herself.

Oh my love! She thought, and then forcefully pushed him from her thoughts. She needed her wits about her when sparring with her father.

"Morning is upon us, my child. It's time we left this wretched night behind."

"Gladly," she replied. He clasped his hands behind his back, affecting a posture of nonchalance. She mirrored him, folding her hands demurely in front of her.

"There are some difficult decisions ahead; I would like your help with one of them, my dear." Inwardly, her instincts pealed madly in warning. By the Elders, had Tannis told? If that was the case, her next words could seal her fate.

"Of course, Father." The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten suddenly parched lips. Were she human, her heart would have raced, her breath would have shortened. As a vampire, she would not be so easily betrayed by her body.

"With Lucian gone, we must promote another Lycan in his place." At this her facade cracked, the slight tolerant smile vanishing, her eyes widening slightly. Sonja grasped at her control. Her father's eyes saw everything. Fear shivered through her. In that fear, she spoke without thinking.

"Gone?" she repeated, as the word resounded through the temple of her heart. Gone? Had they killed him already? No, linked as they were by love, blood and vow, she would know if he was dead. If not now, then very soon. At this her father leaned close, as if imparting a secret.

"Coloman thinks he will stir the others. We must remove him." the strange lilt in emphasis on 'remove' alerted Sonja to her father's relish at the prospect. Stunned speechless, she lowered her gaze, fearing that her face would betray her.

"That will be difficult," she said. No one in a thousand centuries could replace him! Her father's eyebrows lifted, a soft burr in his throat encouraging her to elucidate. She turned toward a brace of candles, clawing for the right words, for the icy clarity of mind she possessed as a Death Dealer.

What had love done to her? Now she was on the brink of confessing all, of abjectly begging for reprieve to lift this dreadful sentence from her beloved's head.

"He has been with us so long," she explained, trailing off into silence.

Sonja stiffened, locking Lucian into a secret corner of her being. She must be cold and calm, like the tranquil summit of a mountain, unmoved by the wind's screams or the sun's gentle persuasion. She turned quickly, as if struck by a sudden thought.

"Perhaps Gyorg. Or Thrassos. They will be . . . trustworthy."

"Excellent suggestions. I will consider them strongly," he commended, the barest light of approval winking in his fierce blue gaze. With that, he left her in the empty hall.

Sonja pushed open the door, expecting to find Luka. Her suite was empty. Sonja's already foul mood dipped still lower. Her maid's quiet comfort had soothed her during Lucian's scourging. Closing the door, Sonja glided to her vanity, lighting scented beeswax tapers. Candlelight shone through their glass housings, washing the vanity table in orbs of red and blue and purple. Sonja sank down in her vanity chair, contemplating the face that stared back at her, frozen unchanging in a pose of un-withering beauty. But she could see the ravages of fear and fatigue in her ageless features, in plain sight for only the moment. Soon she must wear her masks again.

The past months had seen Sonja tired and irritable, conditions she discounted to long, busy nights balancing the opposing spheres of Death Dealer, council member, wife and daughter. Her life had polarized. At one end of the spectrum stood Father with his expectations and his suspicions, the love he withheld and the rest of her kind. At the other stood Lucian, lover, husband, friend, and all the danger, struggle and death that awaited them.

A tiny pulse rippled through her belly, alien and instantly familiar in the same moment.

Sonja shot to her feet, a wild hand scattering the array of cosmetics on her vanity. She swayed on her feet, every muscle and sinew tensed. Raw terror seized her un-beating heart, clawing at her insides like a werewolf trying the break free from a cage. Confusion fogged her mind and she slid down onto her knees on the fur carpet, her necklace swinging. Nausea buckled through her, not of sickness, but of sheer, wild fear.

"It's not possible," she whispered, the words weak and hollow to her own ears. A violently shaking hand rested on her belly. Another lazy nudge, this one of acknowledgment, she thought. Sonja gasped, pressing more firmly to feel the tiny throb of a heartbeat. Its presence confirmed its parenthood, but left unexplained the mystery of its existence.

"By the Elders," she said. There were no words to express the depth of her shock, the utter bewildering gravity of what rested beneath her hand.

A child.

A hybrid child. Half vampire, half Lycan.

The terror of it was subsiding into acceptance. The stakes of an already dangerous game had multiplied a hundredfold. Now three lives rested in the balance: hers, Lucian's, and now . . . their child's—their innocent child's. Sonja's fingers curled protectively over her belly. Acceptance mellowed into tenderness. Never before had she allowed herself to even think about the possibility of pregnancy. It was possible among her kind to bear children, though few did. And as to Lucian's virility . . . in over a decade of loving him, she had never considered . . .

But Sonja felt a definite sense of Someone within her, part of her body, but also its own. It was hers and Lucian's, this tiny life.

She couldn't tell him. Not when Father had him locked in prison. He needed to think of his brothers, his freedom, not worry over her. He would stay, her beloved, he would stay to protect them however he could. For now, this was her secret. Tears wet her lashes. Of fear and joy mixed.

"Hello there, little one," she whispered.

Marcus' personal chronicler was a lazy fool. Tannis poured over the history of Marcus' last reign and found countless discrepancies in hectares of land, tallies of gold, even spelling mistakes. He was so absorbed in his work and the steady stream of abuse on his predecessor that he didn't hear her coming.

A strong white hand gripped the back of his collar and shoved him against the wall, causing an avalanche of scrolls. The sharp, wicked cold prickle of a naked blade against his throat prevented him from fighting back. Beautiful as she was, Tannis often forgot just how deadly Sonja was, as dangerous and volatile as her father, if not more so. For she had something she couldn't bear losing, and it made her desperate. Desperation was a wild and potent tool. Tannis spread his hand in a placating posture, not even breathing for fear of the bitter bite of her blade.

"What have you told my father?" she demanded crisply.

His head spun. How had she-? Ah! Lucian! Of course she would visit her lover, tend his wounds. The fools in the prison complex couldn't catch a clue, much less the First of the Death Dealers when she did not want to be seen. Tannis cursed himself, regretting that snide slip of tongue when Sonja had ridden out and Lucian's eyes had clung to her with such sweet, fervent worry.

The blade dug in suggestively, denting the skin and bringing Tannis violently back to the present. Sonja's hazel eyes blazed, her hands firm, her hold implacable. If he did not answer correctly, she would slit his throat without qualm.

"Nothing," he gasped at last, hissing as the blade broke his skin and red blood trickled from the small wound.

"Why?" she snapped.

"Why what?" he wheezed.

"Why have you told him nothing?" she said calmly, spacing the words as if explaining something to a dull child. Tannis grunted, eyes slit-like on her.

"Would your father welcome the man who brought him news that his beloved daughter was consorting . . . with a Lycan?" he drawled. Tannis glanced eloquently down at the blade. The plump fullness of her lips firmed into a grim line, a dimple carved into her cheek. She yanked back the knife and Tannis expelled a breath in relief, touching the wound resentfully.

"He isn't well known for his gratitude." Neither are you, he thought to himself. She exhaled a sigh through her nostrils. He wheeled out of the corner, looking down his long nose at her.

"And I am not yet in a position to use this," he paused significantly so she could appreciate the scope of 'this'—her lover in prison, her loss of her father's favor, and him, Andreas Tannis, balancing the scale.

"For my benefit," he finished. Her hazel eyes narrowed.

"What sort of benefit?" she said coolly.

Tannis smiled smugly, reveling in this reversal of power. He had Viktor's daughter at his mercy. He took a moment to bask in it, but was instantly aware of Sonja prowling a tight circle around him, eyes gelid blue, like a wolf debating on weather a deer was worth pursuing.

"There are twelve council seats."

"And we don't die often," Sonja remarked dryly.

"Sadly no," he replied. Sonja paused, tapping the haft of her knife against her chin.

"So what if I gave up my seat at council? Simply left it to you?" Tannis frowned. What sort of fool would simply give up such a gambit for power?

"Why would you do that?" the slightest of smiles curled the corner of her mouth.

"Can you keep a secret?"

The words were music to his ears. Deftly, with this one significant fact, all his dreams could be accomplished, without any effort or bloodshed. His smile turned predatory and he began to step toward her, only to be stopped by the thrust of her knifepoint against his chest. Very persuasive, were Viktor and his blood.

"I will need something in return."

The bargain was struck and barely a handful of grains had sifted through the hourglass on his desk before he led Sonja down to the prison, armed with keys—both the key to the lock and the key Lucian had crafted for his moon-shackle. Tannis was grateful when her sharp-eyed, brooding presence hid around a corner. He approached one of the Death Dealers, called Orestes. Not very bright, if Tannis recalled correctly.

"Release the pet. Viktor wants him," Tannis commanded. Orestes' silver armor shone in the torchlight and Tannis glimpsed the shifting of eye from between the narrow faceplates.

"I am under orders to keep him here, my lord."

"Fool!" Tannis hissed, affecting an air of impatient anger, "are you deaf? I said Viktor wants him. Interrogation, you understand."

The name finally registered in his thick skull and Orestes dragged Lucian out of his cell and deposited him in the storeroom on the floor above, formerly Lucian's own room before his spectacular fall from favor. Tannis dismissed Orestes and opened the door. Lucian's dark blue eyes flickered over him in an expression of cautious hope and veiled suspicion, the taut muscles of his chest tensed in readiness for battle. Sonja, garbed in heavy cloak and cowl, filed in after Tannis.

"Two minutes. Any longer is too risky."

Tannis waited outside the door, listening to heavy breathing and stifled moans as they shared a passionate kiss. He rolled his eyes, grateful that no creature had ever entangled him so.

"Hurry," he urged them. He tilted an ear, listening to their whispered plans. A clearing by the river, eh? More information that might prove useful. Sonja melted into the shadows and Orestes returned Lucian to his cell. Tannis crouched over the grate above Lucian's cell, measuring the firm strength of his form, the stony resolve in his gaze unmitigated by the shackle around his neck or the stinking, dripping prison he stood in. He could have been a general or a prince from his bearing.

"You know what your problem is?" he whispered. Lucian glared up at him, coolly measuring as Tannis had measured him.

"You don't understand the natural order of things." Tannis recognized his voice was sneering, but didn't care. It was rare thing in history to be an agent of change, but here he was, on the cusp of perhaps the greatest in his race's history.

"Things change," was Lucian's laconic reply.

"Be ready when they do," Tannis shot back, referring both to his impending coup and Lucian's own escape. He dropped the key and Lucian snatched it deftly out of the air. His fingers unfurled gingerly, evidently wary of a contribution from a vampire.

"Consider it a parting gift."

The sun radiated burning waves of pain, but Viktor stood unmoved, eyes locked with Lucian's. Anger and humiliation washed through him, more searing than the sun's dawning rays. How dare he? Beneath the veneer of anger swirled a riotous hurt, a vicious and stinging betrayal.

I gave you your life, pup, and this is how you repay me? he thought. A small voice inside him cried out and died whatever affection and mercy he held for Lucian dying with it.

"My lord," a Death Dealer murmured, a hand hovering over his sleeve. Viktor's skin hissed faintly as the sun rose still higher, ablaze on exposed skin. Any higher and the sun's deadly light would burn him to ash. Lucian stood proud, lovingly kissed by the sun's light in benediction, unwavering, mocking. His teeth ground together and he melted back into the cool shadows, vowing revenge. Only a small number had escaped, he consoled himself: Lucian, two dozen other old Lycans, and the big dark one, newly turned.

The puzzle of Lucian's escape was easily solved, but Viktor dearly enjoyed watching Tannis squirm, pawing through the contents of the armory searching for the key. He produced it with such an expression of pleading triumph that some of the anger of Lucian's escape ebbed into amusement. An oversight on Viktor's part, he admitted, allowing a blacksmith of his skill and ingenuity to continue on unsupervised, especially when he had spent such time forging a sword for his daughter.

"He must have made another one. I never doubted you."

There was one he did doubt, and the doubt scored his heart. His feet swept lightly across the floor, scaling the stairs to her chamber. Her human maid leapt to her feet at his appearance, hands white knuckled on her rosary beads. A brief spurt of amusement lightened his mood. A cross did not harm his kind.

"Go," he commanded tersely and the little human fluttered away, leaving the dress she was folding in a wad at her feet. Viktor settled in to wait.

He did not have to wait long.

Sonja glided into her chambers with the same remiss grace of a dancer, which her mother had also possessed. A flower of affection cautiously bloomed, regardless of the poisoned seed, the doubting vine. She was a great beauty, his Sonja. Midnight hair, two slender braids pinned at the back of her head with a twist of gold. Lithe beauty garbed in her favored leather and mail.

Everything hinged on what she said, what she didn't.

Unaware of his presence, she strode to her table and measured out spoonfuls of her favorite jasmine incense into a porcelain burner. Viktor admired the measured deftness of her hands, feminine and competent. The winking taper dipped and set the incense alight. A tendril of smoke snaked through the air and its cloying scent teased his nostrils with the lure of a night-blooming garden. It was then she sensed his presence.

"Father." She breathed. Viktor brows lifted.

"Did I startle you, my dear?" he drawled. The tone of his voice relaxed her; he saw some of the tension ebb from the stiff set of her shoulders. Trust me, daughter. He compelled her silently.

"No. No you did not," she said, the corners of her mouth lifting in a smile of greeting. The expression summoned her face, soft in the shapes of childhood, hazel eyes half closed as she beamed up at him, white teeth shining and dimples in her cheeks. Viktor steeled his heart against the images, reminding himself of his responsibilities. He strode toward her balcony window, studying the patterns in the leaded green glass.

"I realize, my dear, that I have been thoughtless." He barely acknowledged her noncommittal sound.

"I was so immersed in my own anguish over Lucian's betrayal that I gave no thought to your feelings." He glanced toward her, measuring her reaction.

"My feelings?" she echoed. He turned and picked up the figurine he had given her, studying the burnished gold idly.

"They worm their way into our hearts, and we forget the travesty of their birth. I myself had tenderness towards Lucian." Viktor paused significantly, abandoning the delicate parry and thrust of convoluted inquiry for a more direct approach.

"Did you help him escape?"

She reacted immediately.

"Help him? Of course not."

There was the slightest touch of anger, betrayed affront that gave him hope. Let it be so! He thought, shying away from what would become of her if she lied. Viktor turned to face her and let her see the violent conflict in his gaze. He could trust her with it.

"Are you lying to me?" a hint of steel entered his voice, in warning. Her hazel eyes softened with her voice.

"There are many things I've done against your will. But he is a Lycan."

The final blow fell and Viktor strained against the truth of what he had to do. The words were too rehearsed, too close to what he so ardently wanted to hear. He approached her, gently brushing her hair from throat. He leaned close and dropped a kiss on her forehead. Viktor saw the look of surprised happiness, carefully restrained and smothered in her face and Viktor felt an instant's piercing regret for not showing her the love she so hungered for.

"I am sorry, my dear," he rasped, utterly sincere, "but you leave me no choice." Viktor struck, moving behind her and sinking his fangs into the elegant column of her throat.

Blood-visions were the most potent form of communication. It barred any sort of rationalization, editing, or filter. The taster was immersed in every thought, emotion, word and action, no matter how the tasted struggled. And Viktor, even though he was Elder of the Coven, was hard pressed to resist the wild, screaming force of Sonja's will.

Images washed over him, the great privilege and loneliness of her pampered childhood, fierce pride in her warrior's prowess, her quiet pining for the love he withheld. He saw himself, a veritable titan looming over her, a figure she paradoxically loved, admired, resented, and feared.

Then . . . him.

Viktor watched their affair unfold, felt her pleasure as he took her body. His rage built inside him, but he maintained the connection, scourging himself with the reality of his beloved daughter's betrayal. She lied to his face, vowing her loyalty with that dog's scent on her skin and his seed between her thighs. Every missed council session was spent in his arms, crying out in pleasure as he . . .

Viktor could stand no more and tore himself free from her mind. A broken cry issued from his lips, ragged like a wounded beast.

"Father, please-" the lying bitch pleaded.

How dare she beg for him!

He vented his rage with a resounding backhanded blow across her face. She fell back across the bed and he braced a knee on her belly, hands tightening around her throat.

"You wanted me to believe your lies. I knew it could not be true, not my own daughter. How could you?" her eyes glinted a vampiric blue, face set in a tragically vulnerable expression. She made no move to throw him off, though it was within her power to do so.

"Father . . . I love him," she whispered, her voice very small, very young, echoing the beloved vision of her as a child that he held in his heart.

It was true.

By the stars, it was true!

After tasting her blood, he knew that at least was accurate. It saturated her every thought, and was deep and vital to her existence. Not an affair, tied to the appetites of the flesh and an attractive thrill to her reckless nature. Sonja loved that disgusting dog Lucian, no matter how inconvenient, dangerous or terrible the consequences. Viktor's hands squeezed, wild with pain and fear. It would be mercy to kill her now, and spare her the council's judgment. Instead he released her with disgust, her blood a faint red smear around his mouth.

"You have betrayed me! To be with an animal!" he shouted. Viktor strode toward the door, no longer able to bear it, "I loved you more than anything!"

To a Death Dealer, "She does not leave this room!"

The door slammed shut on Sonja and a similar one slammed in his heart. He would cut her out of that traitorous, lying organ, throw those diseased parts in the fire. She was now a pawn against Lucian, nothing more.

Nothing more.

Janos peered at the form trotting from the gate. Even cowled, he could still glimpse a wayward strand of blond hair.

"It's Lady Sonja's little maid. Should we stop her?"

The Death Dealer he addressed did not even look up, keeping his attention on the game board balanced on his knees and studying his opponent's last move. He waved a negligent hand.

"Nay. What's one little human? Can you blame her for running out on Viktor's little princess? She's probably trysting. Let her go."

Janos shrugged and forgot her the instant he turned his back.

Lucian closed his eyes, breathing deeply of the rich night air, full of complex scents of the forest and all that inhabited it. The air smelled like freedom. Years ago he had worried if he would feel naked without the moon-shackle around his neck. He did, but there was a freedom in that nakedness that he gloried in. Now, his chains were no longer of metal, but of responsibility and love. His brothers were still trapped in Viktor's vengeful clutches, and Lucian knew he would never feel fully free until Sonja was with him.

His venture in the caves had gone well. Though unable to communicate with them on even the crudest level, the pack of werewolves had not killed him, a favorable sign. Lucian shoved aside a branch and strode down the hill to the camp where his ragtag army waited. Sabaas glanced up from the pot he was stirring and dismissed Lucian's arrival with a careless shrug. Lucian hid a smile. Sabaas' calm, laconic demeanor tempered Xristo's fervor and Raze's force. Lucian's eyes scanned the camp, picking out the new arrivals clustered together in groups, tending their weapons or chatting in low tones.

"At this rate we'll have enough men by the end of the week," Sabaas remarked, sneaking a taste of soup. Lucian nodded. Perfect.

His own stomach rumbled and he caught the bread Raze threw to him and took a large bite.

"Any sign of Sonja?" he asked, trying to keep the concern from his voice. Three days had passed without a word. Raze looked up from the massive war axe he was sharpening.

"Nothing," he rumbled.

Xristo stood and strode over to him, bouncing with energy.

"With respect Lucian, I don't see the wisdom in waiting for her. She's not one of us." A quick flash of anger flared inside him and his fists balled for his love's sake. Xristo was no better than the vampires, hating her simply for what instead of what she was! He shared a glance with Sabaas and a few others and found it was a common sentiment.

"Have you forgotten? She's the one who set us free," Lucian said with forced calm. Xristo stepped still closer, blue eyes wild with passion.

"She is a vampire. If she's deceived you, she could lead them here-" the remaining threads of his temper snapped and his arm thrust out, seizing Xristo by the neck and slamming him against a tree.

"Death Dealers will undoubtedly be on the hunt, and they will, eventually find us. But not by her doing!"

He released Xristo and cast his burning blue gaze around the camp.

"I trust Sonja with my life and as long as I'm in command, so shall you."

With that, he stalked off toward the east, where he could watch for Sonja's arrival. The tie that bound them was intact, and vibrated like a plucked lyre string. He knew in his gut that something was wrong. He hadn't slept in two nights and was dizzy with hunger, but this premonition would not let him sleep or sit still, so he paced back and forth like a tiger in a cage.

"She'll come." Raze's bass voice broke into his anxious thoughts. Tension ebbed from his shoulders and Lucian smiled ruefully. Raze massive form leaned against a tree next to him, his muscled limbs nearly matching it in girth. Sabaas' bite on his neck had healed to a faint scar and Lucian wondered as he often did if they felt any different.

"That bad, eh?" he replied. Raze's thick lips part to reveal animal white teeth as he smiled. A grunt-like chuckle emanated from his chest.

"Yes. Perhaps it is because I know little of your—our—world, but I can see that what is between you is real. I don't see a vampire, I see a woman in love."

Lucian clapped a hand on Raze's broad shoulder.

"Thank you, Raze. You're the only one. The others think I'm mad, or seduced by the wiles of Viktor's daughter." Lucian grunted in reluctant amusement.

"Maybe I am."

Raze flexed his hands, each as large as a shovel blade. When he met Lucian's eye, his brown orbs were bright with amusement.

"Don't you know the thing about a pack of dogs, Lucian? Only the strongest two are allowed to mate." Raze offered a large, callused hand, the black skin on the back sharply contrasted by his pale palm.

"Come, my friend. I'm hungry."

Luka heeled her tired horse into a lurching canter, tears slipping down her cheeks. Lady Sonja—arrested by her own father, on trial that would end in her death! Oh my lady! Luka wept.

She had been ten summers when a vampire came to her home. Only ten summers when he killed—and fed from—her father. Her mother and baby sister had died in childbed, and had left Luka alone with her beloved, crippled father. She remembered the young man, looking no older than seventeen summers, who had been the one to drink from her papa. As his lifeless body fell limp to the floor, the creature had looked at her with those inhuman blue eyes, long fangs wet with blood. The night passed in a state of constant terror as he threw her across the back of his horse and galloped off into the night.

The young man was one of Lord Viktor's vassals and held a small estate at the mountain pass between the castle and the sea, a daylight resting place for a vampire traveler. He needed a servant, and found one in Luka—both for his home and his bed.

He liked pain.

Luka shied away from the memory, once more blessing the saints that she had spent only a month with the man. A day more and her spirit would have broken beyond repair.

Her captor had taken her to the vampire gathering at the castle. Lady Sonja had been in the courtyard, garbed in her armor with a sword at her side in the midst of training. Luka had never seen anything as beautiful and terrifying as she. Luka remembered the enigmatic hazel eyes grazing over her. One black brow, as bold as a stroke of calligraphy ink, lifted haughtily.

'Yours, Fredrick? If this is the way you treat your humans, I shudder to think what would become of the Lycans you request of my father,' she had said in that ringing voice to her master. He muttered some platitude and Sonja raised a gloved hand, without taking her eyes from Luka's.

'I would like a maid. Sell her to me.'

Silver changed hands and her master was dismissed. Lady Sonja turned to another servant and said, 'See that she has a bath, a proper meal and tending to her wounds.' She then addressed Luka for the first time, a slight smile revealing a winking fang and a charming dimple in one cheek.

'Fredrick is a worthless cur. I wouldn't see him own a mouse, much less a skinny little girl. You're safe now, human.'

Since then, Sonja had shown her nothing but kindness. Her mistress was the closest thing Luka had ever had to a mother, sister, or teacher. So Luka tended her things and kept her secrets. But now that secret would have her killed. Helpless misery wound its way around her heart. Despair had been her constant companion in the long, lonely two day ride.

He deserved to be in prison, not Sonja!

There was a thicket ahead, obscuring the river she followed. She slowed her horse and the grateful beast dropped to a plodding walk. She saw movement in the trees and knew she was in the right place. Luka entered the camp of men and saw him, beaming as he approached her horse. She saw him falter mid-stride, and the smile died the moment he realized that Luka wasn't his beloved. Luka shoved back her cowl and glared at him with all her impotent hate.

"Luka. What's wrong? What happened? Where is she?" he demanded.

"Sonja's been arrested. He knows about the two of you," Luka snapped, mustering every ounce of venom she could muster.

It was his fault!

She watched it sink in, watched the ugly truth of it dawn on his face and felt a dark satisfaction as he swayed on his feet. His loss was as great as hers.

"He will kill her," he said softly.

"I thought you should know."

Luka wrenched her horse around and rode off into the night, alone.

"It's a trap, you know that," Sabaas reasoned.

"You'll be killed!" Xristo snapped harshly.

Lucian slid the two scimitars he'd modified for his own personal use home in their sheaths across his back. Resolve hardened within him. Freedom meant nothing without her. Life meant nothing without her. The love of Sonja had wakened something in himself that he had never known existed.

"I will not let her die alone," he stated with the slightest emphasis on 'alone.' If he didn't make it in time to save her . . . a shudder ran through him. Death would be preferable to a life without Sonja.

His mind was already flying across the leagues that separated them, forming a ragged semblance of a plan. Raze matched Lucian's stride, emanating concern.

"They followed you here, Lucian. If you go, we will lose them."

"Let me tell you something, my friend, they may have followed me but what truly brought them was the idea of being free, that what brought them here. Now you can hold them here until I get back, and lead them if I do not."

Lucian left him, sprinting with every ounce of speed he could muster back toward the castle, toward Sonja . . . and Viktor.

In retrospect Lucian mused, breaking into the castle was far easier than breaking out. After years of climbing sheer rock faces to reach Sonja, it was ease itself to scale the wall and cross the courtyard to his forge before the Death Dealer on the wall had even turned around. A storm was gathering, he noted, sniffing the wind. He could hear rumbles of thunder on the horizon and a smattering of drops pelted his leather-clad shoulders and dampened his hair to ropy strands. His entrance was where the ease ended. Even though he had been a denizen of the castle since infancy, he had never been inside the castle itself without an escort.

His heart slammed against his ribs, his breathing ragged as he scaled the stairs and ran soft-footed down the second-floor hall. Save for the random candelabra lit in a sconce, the halls were dark and damp, like the interior of a cave. His skin crawled, imagining vampire eyes watching from the darkness his eyes couldn't penetrate. He hadn't been this apprehensive when facing untold scores of hostile werewolves!

Lucian froze at the sound of boots at the end of the hall. He leapt up, bracing himself on the walls. He gulped in a deep breath and held it, hoping his thudding heart wouldn't betray him. A Death Dealer paused directly beneath him and a drop of rainwater fell from Lucian's hair and landed with a bell-like chime on his helm. The Death Dealer looked up, and Lucian fell upon him, dragging the edge of his sword across the vampire's throat. Red blood spurted out and stained Lucian's chest and arms. A brief surge of satisfaction burned through him when he saw it was Cai, the one who had killed Eoin. It felt good to vent rage and fear in blood-letting on Viktor's lapdogs. He shook the blood from his sword and hurried on. Time was running out. He needed to get Sonja and get out of the castle before the body was found.

Blindly, he rounded a few corners and at last saw two Death Dealers guarding a door. Relief swept through him. Alive. She was still alive. He retreated back and stomped his feet, smearing Cai's blood on the stones. One of the guards came to investigate and Lucian smiled. If all of Viktor's Death Dealers were this unwary and stupid, there was hope for them yet. His dispatched the two guards and shoved open the door, breaking the iron lock. Sonja stood across from him, sword drawn.

They stared at each other for a long moment, drinking in the reality of each other's presence and wholeness. Tears filled her eyes.

You came back for me, her eyes said.

Of course, his replied.

They moved as one, meeting in a tight embrace, no less potent encumbered by weapons and armor as they were. Their mouths met in a kiss, a sweet battle of lips and tongue, devouring each other and Lucian's heart soared. Sonja pulled back, her free hand stroking his face.

"But Lucian . . . you were free." His throat closed. His Sonja, had she clung to that knowledge, even imprisoned and waiting for the death blow to fall?

"Not without you," he replied, snatching another kiss. He pulled back and grasped her hand.

"We have to go. Now."

Lucian hung back, letting her lead them through the labyrinthine halls, trusting her eyes, her speed and judgment. Two hapless guards stood over the grate they needed. Both he and Sonja struck in perfect sync and they two of them fell dead to the ground with a muffled thud.

It was raining in earnest now, lightning arching in white fingers across the sky and thunder snarled and growled loud enough to rattle the stones. Now Lucian took the lead, guiding her. They were so close! Just another few steps and—

One of the grates above opened and a barrel fell, bursting open and spilling its contents. A torch followed and the pitch caught in an explosion of roaring orange flame.

"Get back!" he shouted, pushing Sonja away from the fire. They backtracked, switched directions, but systematically, each route of escape was cut off by a seething wall of heat until only one grate remained. Damn Viktor! Lucian thought viciously, herding them like cattle, funneling them to the route he wanted.

Lucian looked to Sonja. Her eyes were blue, with fear or anger, he wasn't sure. A hard fight faced them, maybe an impossible fight, against Sonja's own father. The conflict caused by their love, what they so desperately tried to ignore now loomed over them. A part of him wished she would surrender and plead for mercy, at least then she would live. But his Sonja, brave, loyal and a goddess in battle, she would not shrink from a fight.

It wasn't in her.

He nodded once and kissed her sword hand.

'I love you,' he mouthed, before leaping into the rain.

Sonja batted aside Janos' spear and leapt into the air, kicking Varos across the jaw and turning a graceful flip. She landed and sliced open Varos' throat, watching him fall dead to the flagstones. A moment's fierce regret assaulted her for killing her own kind, for killing vampires she had trained and fought with. But whatever regret she felt was erased at Lucian's muffled grunt as one struck him. A thorny circle of Death Dealers held Lucian at the point of a crossbow. The sound and sight of it lit a fury in her hotter than the sun.

She would kill and kill again until both of them were free!

Janos ran at her again, armed now with a sword. She parried and spun in a tight circle, bringing her blade down across the back of his neck, his face a macabre mask of agony. A hysterical urge to laugh bubbled up in her.

Dead again, Janos, she thought, thinking of their many spars. She barely felt the storm as it raged around her, soaking her to the bone. Sonja turned and was rocked by a vicious backhand slap. That was familiar.

Now the moment she had dreaded.

She lifted her sword, dripping with vampire blood, against her father.

"How dare you raise your hand to me!" he bellowed, drawing his own sword.

"I do not want this," she stated, blades of agony slicing shallow wounds in her soul. The pain mingled with anger. He forced her to it!

Unhearing, Viktor shouted, "I am your father!"

Fathers don't bite and strike their daughters, she thought blackly, all buried resentments and hidden slights surged up, coalescing into one pulsing knot of concentrated anger. They danced with their blades, elegant, singing sweeps of steel cleaving the air.

Fathers don't arrange to have their daughters murdered. He grasped her sword arm, wrenching it to a painful angle.

"You think you can defeat me?" he sneered.

"I don't want to defeat you," she spat through clenched teeth.

Fathers don't threaten to kill their daughters' husbands! Sonja yanked her arm free, batted aside his sharp thrust and disarmed him with a quick twist of wrist, shoving him down across the stone steps. The sight of her father prostrate beneath the blade filled her with a peculiar mixture of satisfaction and pain. If their places had been reversed, she could not say with any certainty that he would hesitate on the killing blow. That knowledge was a bitter draught to swallow.

Her tears were lost in the rain, her heaving sobs hidden by the roar of thunder. She set the tip of her blade to Viktor's throat.

"Killing me won't save your precious Lycan!" he spat, seething even in defeat.

"Please call off your men. For the sake of your grandchild."

Sonja could not have evoked a more diverse reaction. A collective hiss escaped the Death Dealers' lips at her words and the silver tips of their crossbow bolts dug into his neck. It was only the fear of Viktor's wrath that kept them from killing him. Viktor looked like someone was cutting out his entrails with dull knife.

Lucian himself could scarcely been more . . . shocked? Surprised? Stupefied? The feeling defied description.

Pregnant.

A child.

His child.

By the moon! How was it possible?

Sonja grasped her father's limp hand and pressed it to her belly.

"A miracle, Father. A union of the bloodlines!" she said, pleading. Mixed blood, a hybrid child . . . unheard of. An abomination to vampire purists like Viktor. Lucian knew Sonja's plea would fall on deaf ears. Viktor would try doubly hard to rid himself of this repulsive and cumbersome secret.

Lucian watched the shock ripple through Viktor's body. What did he feel? A heartbeat? The baby's movement as it sensed its mother's touch—and its grandfather's? Lucian's own hands ached, yearning to feel what he felt, to share the wonder of it with her, his beautiful wife. Viktor seethed in rage and disgust, his face twisted with the ravages of both.

"I curse the day your mother gave her life to bring you into this world. That thing inside you . . . is a monstrosity!"

Lucian glimpsed the wink of steel in Viktor's hand and called out a warning, "Sonja!" Red-black pain exploded across his mind as a Death Dealer struck him in the belly while another hit his head with the butt of his crossbow.

"This is over," Viktor growled, holding the cold steel to his daughter's throat.

"Remove him!"

A Death Dealer grabbed each of his limbs and bore him away, struggling and screaming her name. The last he saw was her head bent in defeat, her father's hands talon-like on her shoulders.

For the first alternate ending, choose Chapter 2.

For the second alternate ending, choose Chapter 3.

For the third alternate ending, choose Chapter 4.