The flight from New York was a disaster. We were held up for what seemed like hours on the tarmac at New York by fog and then again over London for some reason that I never actually discovered. The result was to make us several hours late and Bill and I arrived at the Mill House with minutes to spare before dawn. As we drove over the little hump backed bridge beside the Mill and pulled into the yard I felt a sense of profound relief. We were home and we were finally alone. Well, okay there was a minibus full of security guards coming up behind us but they didn't count as far as I was concerned. Lilith wasn't here and that was all that mattered to me. Dan and Azaria had stayed in New York for another few nights and would not be joining us until the weekend.

Bill and I jumped out of the car and headed for the front door.

"Ask one of Harry's guys to get the luggage out would you?" Bill asked as he pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the door.

"Leave all that to me. You need to get downstairs!" I said trying to hurry him up.

"Just one moment! There's something I want to do first."

"You don't have time Bill! Bill!..." I gave a little squeak as he pushed the door open and swept me up into his arms, carrying me over the threshold and into the wide stone hallway.

I clung to him, laughing. "You're supposed to do that when we're married, not when we're just engaged!" I said.

"So that just means I get to do it again!" he laughed. "But you're right, I can feel the sunrise approaching." He kissed me and put me down on the rug in front of the empty fireplace. "I'll see you at dusk sweetheart!" There was a rush of air and he was gone.

I stood for a moment before the huge cold stone fireplace, trying to decide whether I wanted a cup of coffee or just to fall into bed beside Bill. There was the slight sound of a footstep on the stone flags and I turned to see Harry looking quickly around the hallway.

"Everything okay Miss?" he asked.

"Hello Harry! Has Ulrich appointed you as my personal security?"

"Well, not exactly Miss..." he looked a little embarrassed. "Actually I asked Herr Von Shroeder for the assignment personally. I..." he glanced around the empty hall. "I never got a chance to thank you Miss, for what happened in the Museum. I don't quite know what you did, but I know I'd be dead if it weren't for you."

We stared at each other from opposite sides of the hall. "Would you like a coffee Harry?" I asked.

"Thank you Miss. I'll just check the perimeter first..." he hurried out and I sighed deeply and headed into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

Ten minutes later we were sitting on opposite sides of the big oak kitchen table clutching mugs of instant coffee. I really wasn't sure what to say to him so I decided on the truth.

"You must never repeat what I'm going to tell you Harry!" I said sternly.

He looked quite offended. "Of course not Miss!"

"What I did...it was...I have power Harry. I used it to throw that man off you. I don't even really know how I did it. I only know that I was furious and I wanted him away from you."

He stared at me in silence for a moment, digesting this information. "Does it come from Mr Compton?" he asked.

"No...no, it's nothing to do with Mr Compton. Although I might never have known about it if it wasn't for him."

"Then where...?"

I sighed. "Do you believe in fairies Harry?" I asked.

He grinned at me over his coffee and I watched his face change as he realised that I was serious. "You're not talking about little twinkly fairies are you Miss?"

"No...they're not little and they're certainly not twinkly!"

He thought about this. "Well...if someone had asked me five years ago if I believed in vampires I'd have said no. And I'd have been wrong wouldn't I!"

"I couldn't tell you exactly what they are or even where they are, they appear to occupy some other plane of existence now, but they lived here among us in the past and some people are descended from them, have faery blood in their veins, and I'm one of them."

Harry drank the rest of his coffee in silence, considering. "You say you don't know how you did it? How you used this power?"

"Not really no."

"Then I would suggest you find out Miss. Practice, learn how to use it, how to control it. I've worked for vampires for some time now and I can assure you that power like that could come in very useful!"

I smiled. "I suspect you're right there Harry!" We both sat for a moment in silence and then I got up and put my mug in the sink. "Well, I need to get some sleep! I'll see you later." I headed for the cellar door leaving Harry sitting at the kitchen table lost in thought.

I woke a few hours before dusk. For a few seconds I was disorientated, the layout of the room in the dim light was unfamiliar at first as I was so used to hotel rooms, then I remembered where I was and relaxed. I rolled onto my side and looked down at Bill's still form lying beside me. He looked peaceful and relaxed and I smiled to myself feeling the same relief I had felt every time I watched him sleep since she had left him. He was mine again, although his time as the vessel of the goddess together with his position as High Chancellor had raised his profile considerably and he had been brought to the attention of several powerful vampires. I was not entirely sure that this was a good thing. I leaned down and kissed him gently then slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

Half an hour later I was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a slice of toast. Harry's security men had evidently done some shopping for essentials and there was milk and Tru Blood in the fridge and various other supplies in the cupboards. As I ate I pondered what Harry had said to me, that I should try to learn to control my power. It was a sensible idea, but I had no idea how to go about it! I sat staring into space for a while and then stood up and shook myself. This wasn't helping was it? I picked up my coffee and headed outside to see what had been going on in the garden while we were away.

Well I was glad to see that someone had, at least, cut the lawn. I wandered around, sipping my coffee, idly pulling deadheads off the rosebushes and enjoying the late evening sun. Eventually I wandered back to the house and sat down in an old garden chair next to the back door. On top of the low wall around the yard was an old earthenware flowerpot, chipped and patterned with a spiderweb of cracks by the frost. I sat staring at it and thinking of what I had done in the Field Museum in Chicago. Three of the Fellowship of the Sun protesters had Harry on the floor and one had pulled a knife from his boot. I remembered the white hot fury I had felt at the thought of that creep hurting a good man, a man I considered to be my friend. Without thinking about it I raised my hand and concentrated on the flower pot. I felt something like a faint electric shock and to my complete surprise the earthenware pot shattered with a bang.

I actually got up and walked over, picking up the pieces and examining them, before I could bring myself to believe that I had done this. Perhaps the cracks had got too much, I thought to myself. The change in temperature as the sun began to go down might have caused the pot to fail. I opened the barn door and found half a dozen more flower pots which I brought out and lined up on the low wall. I had destroyed four of them and felt that I was beginning to understand what I was doing when I felt something through the blood bond and knew that Bill had come silently up behind me.

"Having fun are we?" he asked.

"I can do this Bill! I can control it!" I replied excitedly, gazing, fascinated at the broken pots.

"And what made you decide to test your new-found power on my poor, inoffensive flower pots?"

I turned to him, meaning to explain, when a thought struck me. "Well actually, they're my flower pots. Unless there was some clause in all that paperwork that I signed which said that you got to keep the fixtures and fittings?"

Bill opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. "Ah...yes. Well, please go ahead and destroy as many of your flower pots as you please." He moved up closer behind me and slipped his arms around me, nuzzling into my neck and giving me a soft kiss. "Am I still permitted to stay in your house?" he kissed me again. "Please?"

I laughed. "Don't be silly! I can't wait to sign it all back to you!"

He hugged me tightly to him. "I may not have told anyone about our engagement but I still intend to make you my wife Miss Morgan! Then you can...what's the expression? 'endow me with all your worldly goods'."

I giggled. "Does that mean you get to obey me as well?"

"Oh, I don't know about that...this is the 21st century you know...though I would like to make it clear that I'm prepared to worship you with my body any time you like!"

"I'll just bet you are!" I reached up and drew his face down to me for another kiss.

Without taking his mouth from mine he picked me up and walked over to the garden chair where he sat down with me in his lap. "So...are you going to explain what you're up to?"

So I sat in his arms and told him about my conversation with Harry that morning. How he had advised me to learn how to use my power, to practice it.

"That's a very sensible suggestion." he said looking down at me seriously. "You know, to affect a physical object, to break it like that, takes a considerable amount of power!"

"Then it's best if I learn to control it, don't you think?"

"You certainly should, maybe you can learn to shape it, direct it. I have some experience with Lilith's power, I could help you. As it is we'll be fine if we're ever attacked by an army of angry flower pots!"

He clung to me, laughing as I tried ineffectually to wriggle free. Eventually I was laughing so much myself that I gave up and relaxed back into his arms...

The next night we climbed into Bill's Aston Martin and set off. We took the A44 north heading for Chipping Norton then branched off on a minor road signposted to Long Compton. We were driving between high hedges until we came up on a ridge and Bill pulled over into a lay-by and got out of the car. We squeezed through a gap in the hedge and onto the edge of a field and looked down on several farms and the village spread out along the road ahead. Reaching up from the centre of the village was the spire of the local church of St Peter and St Paul.

"It looks so peaceful doesn't it" whispered Bill. "It's hard to imagine that three hundred and fifty years ago this countryside was fought over time and time again during a Civil War."

I watched him as he gazed down over the moonlit fields and I guessed that he was thinking about his own experiences of war.