Author's Note: The third chapter of Love & Death is here. It's slightly shorter than the previous two, but if I make my chapters shorter like this the updates will be quicker. If you review, please tell me if you'd like longer chapters that take longer to get there, or vice versa. Thanks to everyone who reviewed – you always make my day go better. Rating for language only.

Disclaimer: The only things I own are the original stuff … don't sue me.


(The next day)
The Vampire fortress
Sonja's chambers

Was that a dream?

The last day had been so confusing, such a disjointed blur, that Sonja wondered if it was real or actually a dream. Certainly she'd felt like she was in a dream – her heart leaping from one depth of feeling to the next, down and down and down, past attraction, past fondness, past attachment, deeper still to … to something more. Something she'd never felt. She couldn't feel it now; it was just a giddy fuzzy wrenching sweetness in her heart, and her mind couldn't put a name or a reason or logic to it. It was like the nicest sort of insanity.

I said it was love. Is it love? How would I even know? How can I tell whether it was just one thing in my befuddled mind leading to another … because I was so woozy and weird and high?

Sonja leaned back against the headboard of her bed. That night at a feast, she'd been introduced to a group of vampires who were visiting from Ireland. One of them, tall and dark-haired, named Donovan, was a cousin of the high-ranking Council member Lady Amber. He was handsome and charming and she might have liked him but for the fact she'd overheard her sisters talking about how their parents had hopes the Irish noble would marry one of the sisters.

Winona was engaged to Mathieu – a rising young warrior in the coven – and Ymogen showed no signs of settling down yet, so it didn't take long for their youngest sister to guess that it was she herself whom Viktor and Janine intended to marry Donovan. She'd never thought about getting married yet, though she knew that as she was approaching seventy she would have to consider it soon. But although she'd always been open to the idea of an arranged marriage, now that one seemed possible in her near future she suddenly understood it wasn't right for her.

I have to be able to choose. I want to love my husband and I want him to love me, as well.

This would be so much easier if I understood what I mean by love.

Consequently, she'd been as cold and discouraging to Donovan as she could be and still be within the realms of courtesy. She could tell her father was irritated and doubtless her mother would be when she heard about it in Russia. Afterwards, early in the morning, by the time she'd planned to be safely in bed asleep for the day, she found herself having an argument with Viktor. He never mentioned any marriage plans but reproached her for not being 'as polite as our guests should expect'. When she'd finally got to bed, she couldn't sleep with agitation.

In this state she'd gone to the archives to find an entertaining poetry book and to sing in privacy to try and get herself calmed down. Even then she felt slightly wild and insane, but she'd met the man … Lucian.

One thing led to another as they do in dreams, and she'd stood there cheek to cheek with him for some immeasurable length of time in a kind of golden dizziness thinking that she knew she loved him. But dreams always fade and leave a remembrance, a fragile cobweb-like fragment of their glories in the back of your mind. Sonja felt that breathtakingly delicate memory of a dream of love and it seemed to her that if she could see it in its entirety, then she would know, she would remember whether that wonderful feverishness was love or not. But the more she struggled to recall, the more she strained to reach that frail little cobweb, the more it blew out of her reach.

But if I do truly love him, even if I don't care what race he is, others will and those others will almost certainly kill him and probably me also. And if I loved him I would not wish him to be hurt, ever.

At the thought of Lucian hurt or dead a sharp knife's-edge of pain cut through Sonja's chest.

So. Even if I don't really love him at any rate I don't want him to be hurt … so for his safety I have to keep my distance.

Sonja lifted her head with firm resolve. She wouldn't do anything to put him in danger – not now and not ever.

Just as she was thinking this, her door slammed open and a sort of whirlwind stormed in, ripped open the drapes on her bed and slammed down on the end of it. Sonja blinked twice and saw that it was in fact her sister Ymogen. Her black hair was rumpled, her eyes burning, her colour high, her breath coming in gasps and she was clearly furious.

"What's wrong?" Sonja ventured gingerly but her sister cut her off.

"It's just never enough for you, is it?" she hissed ferociously.

"What – "

Ymogen tossed her head like an affronted wild horse. "You sit there, all prim and pretty and you ask what the hell you've done? Oh, you can ask! You well can ask can't you, sister?" Sonja was completely baffled. "Oh no, because it's never enough for you, is it you little bitch, you – "

"Ymmy!" As Sonja stared with her mouth slightly open, their mutual friend Paige darted in. "Ymmy what on earth's the matter with you?"

The furious vampiress snarled, "You're just never satisfied, are you? It ought to have been enough that you get all the love in the world without playing the innocent but no, no, no. You can sit there and you can ask me what you did to me – "

"Ymogen, for Goddess' sake – "

"You know fucking well what you've done!" Her sister almost shrieked it and spun abruptly away and off the bed, ducked past Paige and slammed the door shut as she left.

Both Paige and Sonja gaped. Sonja had the unsettling impression that there had been tears in her sister's indigo eyes as she left. She had to be extremely upset before she cried, so whatever the reason for her inexplicable anger it must have been serious.

"Do you have any idea what that was about, Paige?" Sonja demanded.

"Not the faintest. And I don't suppose you … " She shook her head emphatically and Paige rubbed her brown eyes. "You haven't been arguing with her a lot or anything … " Again, an emphatic headshake.

A thought struck Sonja. "Paige, Ymmy never mentioned anything to you about … loving someone, did she?" The other looked instantly uncomfortable. "Tell me, Paige." Sonja's voice was strained.

Refusing to look at her friend, Paige said, "Can you imagine Ymogen in love? She's never cared that much about anyone but I can imagine what it would be like. She'd be scary – no, worse than just scary – she'd be terrifying. I don't know what she's on about but you better hope that she hasn't fallen in love."


Dedicated to Shari who is as inexplicable and sometimes evil as Ymogen.