A trip to the past

An unexpected meeting

Another night, another patrol, another blood-filled darkness.

It was already everyday business for the Order, but still there were some things they would never get used to.

For example the police interfering.

Lucan swore under his breath when he saw two 5 men squads approaching the empty warehouse – or, well, the not-so-empty warehouse. Rogue quartier.

"Better get them away before the bastards start tearing them to pieces.", Dante said grimly, grasping his Malebranche blades.

"They are too fast.", Tegan objected.

And yes, irritatingly, they were.

"That is not a normal police patrol.", Lucan said slowly, frowning.

Too fast, too disciplined. He searched the rooftops. – And cursed more, tugging his radio.

"Gideon, why didn't you warn us about the storm troops here?"

"'Storm troops', eh? Watched too much 'Star Wars' recently, Lucan? No such thing here on police radio!"

"Well, we have 4 bloody snipers and two operating squads here, plus two or three captains on the roofs!"

A loud BANG! cut him off – the squads had broken the doors – and hell broke loose.

Suddenly the silence was gone, shots blasting, feet pattering over the tarmac, barked orders – and suddenly – snipers down.

One after one, quick.

A shadow, somebody making a quick dash, a black blur in the night.

"Get going!", Lucan barked and the others didn't hesitate to follow him, as he ran into the warehouse.

God damn, it was a battlefield already and the humans weren't put up for a fight with those degenerated creatures – well, damn, how could they?

Still: Twenty Rogues against three warriors, two of them Gen Ones, were nothing – but the death of over ten men. – And one woman.

Lucan recognized her as one of the captains formerly standing on the rooftops. Obviously she had run in to help.

Brave. Loyal. He could not even say 'foolish' – how should she have known what she was getting herself into? – But deadly of course.

He was already half way through the hall again, when a whimper let him stop dead in his tracks.

What?

He turned and looked around, sniffing in the blood-filled air – there was a strange scent. Not the iron hemoglobin – fuck. The smell of something sweet, black tea with milk, mixed with blood.

He ran back, shoving away corpses to get to the whimper and the source of the scent.

"Lucan?", Dante asked puzzled.

But he didn't answer, kneeling down next to the woman, who was coughing, bleeding, clutching her left arm, trying to cover a huge bite mark, trying to hold her ribs together at the same time.

The scent said it all.

Breedmate.

"Get the car and quick! We need Gideon and Tess for her!", he yelled, as he picked her up carefully.

Tegan only needed a short sniff when Lucan came near him with the young woman.

"Fuck, Breedmate…!"

"Yes, and she's dying. We need to hurry, or –"

"Run…"

A weak whisper interrupted him.

"What?"

"Run… There are… Explosives… You need to… Run…", the woman in Lucan's arms murmured weakly, but still urgently.

Lucan decided to not question her and just take her word as the truth. – Luckily Dante and Tegan agreed on that without a further word.

And hell, yes, they were thankful they did so, as only seconds later, they had just arrived at the car – and only thanks to the superhuman speed which was given to the Breed – the whole place went up with a nasty, violent blast and a loud BOOM, leaving nothing behind, but rubble, fire and ashes.

Tegan cursed.

"Fuck, good we listened to her."

"Yeah, we'd be marshmallows if not.", Dante agreed.

Lucan nodded – but he was focused on the woman in his arms.

Her breath was shallow and her skin white as snow.

"C-cold…", she murmured, her voice merely more than a breathy whisper.

And damn, yes, she was cold!

Cold as ice in fact.

Her lips were of a trembling blue, her fingers frozen stiff, making Lucan shiver as she brushed the back of his hand when she tried to reach for his shirt for support.

She barely had her eyes open, blood – Rogue blood – soaking her hair and her clothes along with her own blood.

She coughed up a bit of blood, which got him even more worried. Had they damaged her lung?

"Let's hurry!", he said, carefully climbing in the car and on the backseats.

Dante took the seat next to him, while Tegan took the driver seat.

"Here.", Dante quickly handed him some wrapping material.

Lucan took it, ripping the plastic open with his teeth.

"Thanks."

The only thing he could do so far was trying to stop the bleeding, but he quickly noticed the bite marks weren't the only injury. She must have gotten into crossfire as a bullet had pierced her left upper arm as well. Maybe one of the snipers had tried to get the Rogue away from her, but hit her instead.

They arrived mere minutes later, as Tegan had been driving like the devil himself, and Lucan quickly carried the young woman to the medical station, where Gideon and Tess were already waiting.

Gideon clenched his teeth as he saw her, cursing, while Tess gasped. Lucan couldn't blame them. The Breedmate was looking worse for the wear.

"Fuck, Lucan, what…?"

"Don't ask, work!"

"She has bite marks at her left arm and a bullet wound, she's coughing up blood and I fear some of her ribs are broken – not even mentioning she is suffering from hypothermia.", Tess had quickly laid her healing hands on the young woman.

"Leave that to us – we will take care of her."

It was about half an hour later that Tess got out to fetch them again.

"She is stable now. – In fact, she is awake, but still feverish. I did my best, but her ribs are still bruised, my abilities…"

Dante stepped up to her, silencing her with a kiss.

"Sh, love, she will be fine and you did well, I am certain of that."

She smiled softly,

"Thanks, Dante."

Gideon stepped up behind Tess and Lucan stood up.

"Anything about who she is?"

"Apart from her being a Breedmate? – Actually yes. She had a license and an ID on her and her clothes gave away quite a bit."

He waved them in and pointed at a pile of blood stained clothes, while Tess excused herself.

They were all black, thick and surprisingly many layers – not even mentioning a belt with a gun holster, a knife, bullets, a lock-picker set, a radio and a one-ear-headset – and a badge.

"'MI6 Captain'?", Tegan read out from the bulletproof waistcoat.

"Yeah. – Operating Captain Milena Kučera, to be precise.", Gideon said.

"MI6 is the British version of the Secret Service. What is the MI6 doing in Boston?", Lucan asked.

"I don't know, but one more thing, Lucan. This girl… She was well put up for the cold, Two scarves, beanie under her baseball cap, gloves and so on, The layers were enough to keep her warm for hours – in ALASKA. She could have accompanied Kade."

"So you say she was out there for… How long?"

"At least one day to freeze her like that, more likely two."

"But that is impossible, she couldn't have… She must have been sleeping outside then!", Dante objected.

"She wasn't sleeping.", Tegan said, after shortly touching the young woman's arm.

"But she was out there."

"You are saying she was out in the cold for two full-blown days?"

"Quite so, yes."

"…Could you stop yelling, Sir? My head is trying to kill me without you being so loud already."

Lucan blinked and turned towards the young woman, along with Tegan and Dante.

Now that all of the layers had vanished and only the hospital gown remained, they could what she was really looking like. Lucan had thought that she was light when he had picked her up already.

But this was freakish.

She wasn't anorexic, nowhere near that. But damn, this wasn't normal. They could clearly see tendons and veins, muscles moving under her skin – and strong muscles.

That woman really was a captain. Not the usual one, like they were common among humans right now, those, who would just stand there and shout commands. No, she was a chip of the old block, one who barged in to help when things got ugly and help was required.

"Sorry, Miss.", Lucan said apologetically.

She shook her head.

"No… It's fine. – You saved me after all. I should be grateful, bit complaining."

"Well, you saved us right after."

Her laughter was cold, somehow bitter.

"By telling you about the explosives? That was almost too late already."

"Maybe, still saved our butts."

"Hm."

A short silence occurred.

"Just one thing… I was wondering… How did you know? None of us saw the explosives or smelled them.", Lucan looked at her quizzically.

She shifted a bit, massaging her temples, with her hands.

"I… See through things."

"Not in the usual way, I assume."

"No – causing your migraine, eh?", Tegan asked.

She stared at him, shortly interrupting to massage her temples.

"What? How do you…?"

"Why do you carry such hardware?", he counter questioned, holding up the knife from her belt.

And he was right. It was titanium steel. A Rogue eating blade.

"I… Deliberately seem to attract those… THINGS. – They are not human, are they? As soon as I hit them seriously with a weapon made of this material, they would become ash, while they did not even care about other weapons. – Took me a while to figure that out, even with my strange sixth sense."

"Your gift, I'd say."

"What?"

"You are a Breedmate.", Tegan said bluntly.

"A WHAT?"

Tegan snorted impatiently.

"Where is her mark, Gideon?"

"I'm afraid she could hardly notice it. – She has a scar right over it, almost covering it up. – Left side of her neck."

God damn hell, yes, scars.

None of them could quite believe the crazy amount of scars covering the body of the young woman. Short ones, long ones, big and small, nasty and clean ones, round ones, square ones.

Her left arm was a display of at least six scars, the back of her right hand showing scarred knuckles, under her left eye, over her whole cheek, a long, nasty one, showing all too clearly that she didn't like sitting at home doing nothing. Her skin was thick and she had various blood blisters and bruises at her hands, indicating she was doing a lot with me – a lot of fighting.

"What kind of mark?"

"A drop of blood falling into a crescent moon.", Gideon explained, handing her a small mirror.

She took it, quickly checking her neck.

"You are right… It really looks like it… But what does that mean?"

"That you are a Breedmate."

She snorted.

"Well, I figured that much! But what Breed?"

"THE Breed. Our Breed. – Long story short: Vampires."

She stared at him.

"Vampires. Seriously. Vampires. – What the bloody hell do you think? That I am STUPID? Nobody believes in vampires anymore!"

Tegan growled.

"Well, you better start believing!"

Smelling the blood, inhaling the scent coming from her bloodstained clothes, his fangs grew and his eyes went amber, glowing furiously, the pupils mere slits.

"What…?"

It made her jump. Quicker and stronger than they had thought. She was out of bed and on her feet faster than they had expected, grabbing her knife and holding it in front of herself protectively, eyes widened in fear, pupils dilated, muscles contracted, ready to fight. Lucan could hear her heart beating rapidly in her chest, brutally pounding against her still bruised ribs.

He carefully took a step in her direction.

"Hey, we…"

"STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!"

She pointed her knife in his direction, holding it with both hands. - Damn, she was shaking so much!

Carefully, one tiny step after another, the stepped back, backed away from them, leaving the room, the knife still outstretched in their direction.

"Don't… Don't come near me! You monsters!"

The knife was shaking in her trembling hand and they knew she was no match for them – hell, she was only a human female! – Alright, she was a Breedmate. But she was human!

But… They didn't want to hurt her. That wouldn't help her to trust them at all, Lucan didn't need a degree in psychology for that.

"Listen…"

But Gideon had barely begun that sentence – when she glanced behind herself – and spun around, making a dash for it. – And hell, she was fast! – Alright, still no match for a vampire, but running after her…

"DANTE!"

Obviously the man didn't think about that any further – Gideon ran after him, Lucan and Tegan following – not one of them at full speed, nowhere near that.

"Fuck! – Her ribs are not going to make it like that, they are bruised! – Not to speak about her blood loss and her fever.", he cursed.

"She can't get far this way, can she? Being hurt and everything?", Dante asked.

"She's scared, I wouldn't count on that – Tegan triggered a fight-or-flight response."

Lucan swore under his breath.

"You know we are hunting her down like prey?"

God damn this was almost as bad the blood clubs! – At least she must be feeling like the poor women there.

Lucan wasn't able to think about that any further as the current happenings required his full attention.

They had reached the lift – or, well: The young Captain had reached the lift.

"It's locked, right?"

"Yes, she… - What the hell?"

The lift door opened, much to their surprise – and shock. But Gideon cursed even more when he saw why that was.

Nikolai.

The warrior had just returned from a patrol – and she had bumped into him, while she had been glancing backwards at them.

"Oh? What do we have here?"

"Niko…"

She backed away from him a tiny bit, only to find Gideon, Lucan, Tegan and Dante at her back – and she decided to take the way with less 'enemies'.

"Get away!", she barked at Nikolai, her voice quivering, the knife pointing at his chest.

"What? – Lady that's a dangerous toy you are having there!"

He grabbed the wrist with the knife – but he didn't expect her to drop it in her other hand the moment he tried to free it from her grip. – Not to mention she would thrust it in his stomach at full tilt.

Even with his protection vest, he gasped – bloody hell, what was she DOING there? – But she didn't escape him now. Not when he was angry. Within the blink of an eye he had her wrists – both this time – banged against the wall, facing the wall.

The knife was still in her hands and she refused to let go off it, still fighting, still kicking with her feet, growling, baring her teeth, fear ruling her actions.

"Niko! Don't go too hard on her!", Gideon warned him, as Niko tightened his grip around her wrists and they could hear bones objecting, cracking.

"Gid, she tried to STAB me!"

The knife fell down and she winced in pain.

"Let me go…!", she begged.

Tegan stepped forward, touching her gently – the amber had vanished from his eyes and his fangs were normal again – luckily, she would have screamed at him if not. And he would not have blamed her.

But right now he could feel how scared she was – and how much that did no good to her health. She was in pain and the only reason she was still standing was her adrenaline shoot – and Niko tying her to the wall.

"We don't want to hurt you, okay? It's… All fine."

And that made her stare at him.

"What?"

Her voice was silent, breathy now, confusion in her eyes.

"It's all right, it's okay, we don't want to hurt y– wait, why…"

Tears started to fill her eyes and he was about to ask why – when a flash of emotions hit him, coming from her. Memories. Pain, loneliness… And then hope. A kind word, shelter.

~"It's all fine, it's all right, it's okay now… Don't worry, you are safe…"~

And then pain again. Numbing pain and heart-aching loss.

"Niko, let her go."

A moment later Tegan found himself kneeling on the floor next to a sobbing and crying young Breedmate.