A/N: Thanks so much for the lovely reviews and all the favs and follows! I'm glad you guys still want to read more about this little AU! :')

Helena did not feel the chill the night carried on its tail, as she soundlessly glided through the towering trees surrounding her, her sharpened senses fully concentrating on catching the slightest disturbance in the air. Moonlight barely reached the ground through the tangled web of branches above her head, but the vampire did not need the moon to guide her.

Sometimes, when melancholy overtook her, she may have spared a few thoughts to her former, human existence, and sometimes, she even missed being human.

This was not one of those times.

A rustle to her right alerted her to another presence, but a quick whiff of her nose told her that it was just a mouse returning to its nest. Helena could hear its tiny heart beating furiously, as it perceived the hunter in its proximity.

The vampire had no interest in the tiny animal, however, and continued on her prowl.

As the underbrush grew thicker and the moon had reached its zenith, she stopped again. After having followed the scent of the intruder ever since entering the woods, she had finally found it. Motionless, except for the slight snarl curling her lips, Helena waited until the one she had been looking for stepped into her path.

The long waves of blonde hair seemed almost silver in the few beams of moonlight that had managed to sneak through the branches and the black eyes that reflected back at her were flecked with gold instead of her own red sparks. Helena snarled at the figure before her.

"I should have known you would be audacious enough to come here and threaten my mate."

"Oh, Helena. It is apparent that our mother is drawn to audacious characters, otherwise, she would never have turned you, either."

"What's with her?" Pete whispered through his teeth, while keeping an eye on his partner, who was busy wearing a hole in the floor, and had been doing so for the past hour.

Claudia looked up from her laptop screen, which was balanced on her knees and cast a glance towards the older woman. Eventually, she shrugged. "No clue, man. Why don't you go ask her?"

"I have, dude. But all she did was mumble 'I'm fine, Pete' and then gave me a look that I know to mean 'Leave me alone, or I will punch you'. So I left her alone. Because Myka's punches hurt, Claude."

"I'm sure they do." Claudia mumbled and continued typing. After a moment, she glanced over at Myka's anxious figure again. "Maybe she's just waiting for H.G.?"

"No," Pete said, shaking his head. "Leena said she's been here earlier, but she didn't see her leave."

"Huh. Weird."

"Totally. Do you think they had a fight?"

"Gods, I hope not. Those two are my OTP of all OTPs, I would not be able to stand to see them fight."

Claudia's outburst just managed to leave an utter look of confusion on Pete's face. "What's an OT-"

"We are not fighting."

Myka's voice made them jump, and Pete coughed, having choked on his own saliva.

"How did you-" He wheezed, his eyes teary and his head slightly red.

"Pete, you are not as quiet as you think you are, and I do have ears, you know?"

"Well, okay. So, what's going on, Mykes? You're making me anxious with all the pacing," he managed.

Myka sighed heavily and drew a hand through her tangled curls, while finally coming to a halt in front of the couch. Looking at her two companions without really seeing them, she concentrated on her breathing.

"Helena seems to think another vampire wants to kill me."

"What!" Her two friends exclaimed as one, while jumping to their feet. Claudia barely managed to catch her laptop before it crashed to the ground.

"So she went off into the night and took it upon herself to play the white knight in shining armor – or black knight in dark leather – to protect me."

Pete and Claudia looked confused. "But, Mykes, isn't that supposed to be a good thing? I mean, rather than to throw you to the wolves?"

"But Pete, she's out there all alone! What if something happens to her? She wants to protect me, I get it, but who's gonna protect her? I'm feeling so useless right now! I want to be out there with her and watch her back!"

"Mykes, I'm sure she's fine." Pete tried to soothe her. "She's a freaking vampire! She can handle herself."

Myka just groaned and fell into the cushions the other two had just vacated. Burrowing her face in her hands, they heard her mumble, "Unfortunately, her opponent is a vampire, too."

"Why have you come here, Danielle? Have you grown tired of being Elizabeth's play-thing?"

The blonde snarled at Helena's comment. "Don't you dare insult her! She could have just cast you aside or sucked you dry, when you first came crawling to her for help, but instead she took you in and made you the most powerful hunter there is!"

"Yes," Helena agreed calmly, nodding slightly. "And I am grateful for what she did. That does not mean I have to cherish the earth she walks on for the rest of my existence. And neither should you, sister." Taking a step closer to the other vampire she had known for most of her undead existence, she cocked her head to the side dangerously. "You have yet to answer my question."

"Can't I just come for a visit, because I wanted to see my sister?"

"Not if you come into my territory unannounced."

"Oh, I think I announced myself quite clearly," Danielle stated with a smirk.

Helena growled. "You better stay away from her, do you hear me."

"You've never been this territorial before, Helena. What's happened to you? I can't imagine a meager human having this kind of effect on you."

The dark-haired vampire glowered at the other immortal. "Myka is not simply a 'meager human', as you so distastefully put it. She's my one. So you have better stay away from her, sister, if you want to live."

Danielle fell silent and the self-confident smirk slipped off her lips.

"Mother will not be happy with this, at all." She whispered, almost sadly.

Helena's brows furrowed. "What does Elizabeth have to do with this?"

The blonde sighed heavily. "She wants you back at her side, Helena. She misses you. You know how she gets, every fifty years or so. If she were a human male, I'd say she has hit another mid-life crisis. And, you know just as well as I do that when she get this way, she will not let a mortal stand in her way."

Helena's hands balled into fists and she felt her fangs elongating in rage, pressing against her lips. In a tightly controlled whisper, she stated defiantly, "Just because mother is having another tantrum, does not mean I will simply cast aside everything I hold dear and race back to her side to hold her hand through it."

"I was afraid you were going to say that," Danielle whispered sadly, and closed the distance to take a hold of Helena's still tightly balled fists. Squeezing them gently, she gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry, little sister. I don't think there's anything I can do for you, then."

"What do you mean?" she growled.

"I mean that she will be coming for you personally. So you had better be prepared."

Helena swallowed. She knew all to well that nothing could stop the Blood Countess if she was in the mood for a rampage.

Moscow, Russia

February, 1896

"This is useless," she heard her sister whine to her right, her voice muffled by the thick pelt covering half of her face, and the howling wind raging around them. "All we keep finding are corpses piled under feet of snow! At this rate, we'll never catch up with her!"

Helena rolled her eyes and kept her eyes alert and focused on her surroundings, hoping to find the slightest hint of where their maker could be headed. "She has just been left by her lover, who saw fit to replace her with a vampire who looks barely a day over twenty. You would think that, after so many centuries, she would stop taking it so bloody personally." Helena murmured and came to a halt when the wind carried a whiff of fresh blood towards her. Following the scent, she entered a small alleyway, her eyes needing no time at all to adjust, when the streetlamps on the main road could not reach into the recesses of the small street anymore. A few seconds later, she let out a heavy sigh, when she spotted a young man leaning against the dirty brickwork, half-covered in fresh snow. She didn't need to check to see if he was still alive. His last breath had left him not too long ago, she could tell.

Rubbing her eyes wearily, she turned to her sister, who had remained standing at the corner of the street. "This is the ninth body we have discovered in the last two hours, and I am relatively certain that we have not even found all of them. We have to hurry, or she will get only more bloodthirsty."

Swiftly returning to her previous path on the main road, her sister fell into step beside her. "Why do you even care? They're only mortals. They are meant to die."

"Not like this, they are not. And I know that vampires are prone to forget about it, but we have been mortal once too, Danielle."

The blonde huffed. "And now we are not. It is the natural order of things. Humans hunt animals, and we hunt the humans, Helena."

"Not for sport. Not if we don't have to. Not if we are having a tantrum and acting like a little child." Helena disagreed vehemently, thoughts of her dead daughter flooding her mind. Her little girl, alone and frightened in her last moments, surely asking herself why mommy had not been there to protect her, as she was supposed to do.

Shaking her head to clear her mind of these damning thoughts, she instead concentrated back on catching her maker's trail.

Helena could feel her sister's eyes boring holes into the side of her head as she regarded her curiously.

Finally, she declared, "You are still a relatively young fledgling. I'm sure those feelings of guilt you still cling to so ardently, will go away eventually. They always do." She gave Helena a smile as if that knowledge was meant to soothe her.

It didn't.

Not if the guilt was all that remained of her humanity.

Because without humanity, she would not feel the need to punish herself.

"How long do you think she will be out there?" Myka suddenly asked, at shortly before one in the morning, jolting her half-asleep companions out of their dazed state.

Steve, who had joined them in their vigil a few hours ago, rubbed his face and took a deep breath.

"We don't know anything more than you do, Myka. I guess until Helena is satisfied that you are no longer in any danger. Either that, or until the dawn is closing in on her."

Myka just nodded absentmindedly, and turned back to her vigil at the window.

Meanwhile, Helena was pacing, not too far from her lover's night watch post, but still out of sight, trying to come up with a feasible plan of attack.

Letting the facts revue in her mind, she concentrated on what she knew.

One, she had a lover she would do anything to protect.

Two, her mother was Elizabeth Báthory, the "Blood Countess".

Three, her mother was in a very bad mood, which did never bode well, for anybody.

Four, her mother was coming to town, with the intention of killing her lover.

Five, Helena would rather perish than let anything happen to Myka.

Growling darkly in exasperation, the vampire knew that she couldn't decide her next course of action alone. In the span of a human heartbeat, she had crossed the distance between herself and the porch of the B&B and didn't waste any time entering the cozy establishment.

At the creak of the front door, Myka jumped up from her perch on the windowsill, and hurried towards the sound.

"Helena?" she called, but before she could so much as cross the threshold, the vampire was already standing in front of her.

"You're still awake," the immortal stated.

"Of course I am! I was worried about you!" Myka exclaimed and threw her arms around the other woman's neck, pulling her in close. "God, Helena. Promise me to never go off into the night like that again. I've been worried sick!"

Myka would have probably missed the slight tensing of Helena's muscles, had she not been so attuned to her already.

"What is it?" she asked, backing away slightly to get a good look at her face.

Helena seemed conflicted, the agent could tell.

"I need to speak with you urgently, darling. Let's have a seat, shall we?" H.G stated, and gently coaxed the other woman towards the couch.

"Do you...uh, do you want us to leave?" Claudia asked, unsure of her place at this very moment.

"No, please stay. Your opinions may prove helpful."

So they all found a seat somewhere and waited eagerly, their earlier tiredness evaporated for the moment, for Helena to start speaking.