I'm back. With any luck my updates will be on time for now on, but I don't anticipate this story being as long as Dark Release.

Chapter Five

"Let us believe neither half of the good people tell us of ourselves, nor half of the evil they say of others."

- J. Petit Senn

Penny gaped at Hector for another long moment before she slowly shook her head. "I don't believe you."

"I wish it were otherwise, sívamet," Hector said aloud. "But it's now very clear—"

"That a vampire is stalking us?"

"A vampire is stalking us?" Grace asked, looking between the two of them.

"It would explain how he could invade your dreams with the same nightmares over and over again," Hector said. "How he would know to torment you with a nursery rhyme—"

"Wait, so you have those dreams too, Penny?"

"Wait, what?" Penny grabbed Grace's shoulders. "You've been dreaming that too, Gracie? Why didn't you tell me?"

Grace shrugged. "It's not important."

"Of course it's important! If you're having nightmares and having trouble sleeping at night, you need to tell me these things!"

"I dream about zombies too, though," Grace said. "And horses. Mostly the Karabakh breed."

"Those are very fast horses," Hector said pleasantly, smiling at Grace. "My kind is quite familiar with them. You're a very knowledgeable child, Grace."

Grace shrugged. "Thank you."

"Can we get back to the conversation at hand?" Penny demanded. "Just how do you expect me to believe that this is all the work of a vampire? Didn't you just tell me that the Morrison Center is hunting vampires?"

"There's no guarantee that this vampire is aligned with the society," Hector told her. "He may as well be acting alone. But, if they are aligned then both are surely using each other for personal means."

"Hypocrites!" Penny spat out, absolutely seething where she sat. "They're murdering innocent people on this belief of vampires, but they'll work with a real-life one a-okay!"

"Chances are though," Hector said. "That this vampire is working alone. You've been able to hear his heartbeat since before your family was being hunted, so—"

"Wait, hold on a second!" Penny's head snapped up and she glared at Hector. "How did you know that? I never told you that!"

"It's in your memories, päläfertiil. It only means the vampire has been after you lo—"

"My memories?" Penny shot to her feet and grabbed Hector by his collar. "Let's get one thing straight right now! You are not allowed to invade my privacy! My head is MY head, not yours!"

"I am your lifemate, Penny," Hector said soothingly, not at all offended or alarmed by her anger. "It is my privilege to see your thoughts, memories, and desires. My mind is an open book to you as well. There is no such thing as "privacy" between us."

"I don't even know you! I don't know if I can trust you! So don't you DARE ever read my memories again!"

"You're a psychic too?" Grace asked, also not affected by Penny's anger. "But you ripped a car door off, so are you a super-psychic, or does that make you a vampire or werewolf or alien?"

Hector stared blankly at this odd little girl for a very long moment. "I am Carpathian, sisar. I am quite different from…all of the above."

"Look, look." Penny waved a hand impatiently. "Let's just stay focused! You're trying to say that a vampire is stalking us in addition to the Morrison Center, and this vampire has been after us for much longer! But why is he even after us in the first place?"

"That...I cannot say." It did seem odd to Hector that a vampire would go to so much trouble over a period of several years to stalk Penny and Grace. Penny was surely not his lifemate, and he'd touched Grace's mind as well. Grace didn't have any symptoms of being stuck in a half-life. So it was impossible for the vampire to be linked to either girl.

"He must be deluding himself."

"What?" Penny looked confused for a moment. "What did you say?"

"He didn't say anything," Grace said bluntly.

Hector looked at Penny. "So you can hear me?"

"How are you doing that again? Talking without even moving your mouth?" Penny rubbed her temples apprehensively and slowly sat back down on the bed. "This is all so crazy. I don't even know you, and yet you want to help us, no strings attached?"

"I think it's a good idea," Grace said.

Penny gaped at her, but she shrugged. "He didn't run us off the road, and he's not giving us nightmares. Besides, he's more powerful than a gun. Why refuse his help?"

"Gracie, he's a stranger," Penny insisted. "And what have I told you about strangers?"

"If he's such a stranger," Grace said. "Then why were you making out with him?"

Penny flushed as Hector chuckled very slightly. "Grace, I wasn't—"

"Stop."

Penny stiffened and looked at Hector. All at once the humor was gone from his handsome face. At once he looked cold...and dangerous. "H-Hector?"

"He's here," he announced, looking quickly about the room. "Or rather, he's incredibly close by."

"The vampire?" Grace asked. "Does this mean you're going to fight him?"

Hector reached over and stroked her cheek gently. "Sleep, Grace."

Abruptly, Grace's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell back against the bed. Penny cried out and grabbed her sister into her arms. "Grace! Grace!"

Grace didn't respond whatsoever. "You..." Penny laid her back down and grabbed Hector again. "What have you done?"

"She's asleep, sívamet," he said calmly. "It will keep her safe. And it will keep you safe as well."

"Who do you thi—"

Hector pulled Penny closer and kissed her hard on the mouth. Protests immediately fled Penny, and her knees grew weak. She didn't know something as simple as a kiss could render her senseless, but that was what Hector was doing.

Hector broke the kiss, but with a great deal of reluctant. "Trust in me," he said quietly. "I will protect you and keep you safe. But...you must stay here."

Before Penny could respond, sleep overtook her mind and made her body weak. She'd never felt something so powerful before. Sleep wasn't something that came to her naturally, and she slept lightly and with awareness of her surroundings.

Now...now this was almost like a blessed feeling of exhaustion that she couldn't fight. And didn't want to.

Hector cradled Penny gently in his arms as he laid her down in the bed beside her sister. Despite the dire nature of their situation, he carefully tucked both sisters in underneath the covers. He'd wanted the time to spend and enjoy his lifemate, but the matter at hand was most important.

The vampire had come for them.

Hector departed from the hotel suite and threw up the most powerful shields he could to prevent any intruder from invading. And these poor sisters did indeed have far too many enemies.

That will all change. Hector concentrated on the form of mist and seeped through a window in the hotel hallway. I will never allow these two to feel danger again.

The night was calling to him, but he was focused on this single task of finding the vampire. He was thankful that he had enough self-control to go out and feed before he sought after his runaway lifemate. It would definitely help him to fight.

Hector could feel the darkness permeating the area; the vampire was close. He retook his physical shape as he descended back towards the ground. Yes…the vampire was here. "Foul creature!" he shouted into the darkness of the night, whilst simultaneously sending out a compulsion to keep any humans away. "I am here! Now reveal yourself!"

A horrible hiss reverberated the air. The streetlight above Hector suddenly shook, and he had to jump back as the long neck snapped in half and came crashing down towards him. The loss of the streetlight cast the area into darkness, but Hector didn't need such a meager light to see. "Is that the best you can do? Reveal yourself now, you coward!"

"I am no coward."

Hector picked up something else underlining in this awful voice. The sound of crying. His body was tense as a dark shape emerged from the darkened street and into his view. He saw the blaze of red, evil eyes before he saw the rest of the body.

"You tread where you do not belong, Hunter," the vampire hissed at him. At one time that pale, hollowed face had been handsome, and perhaps fearless. Now the skin was translucent, and stretched against his cheekbones. Inky hair spilled into his face and collected around his neck, making his flesh look even paler. His clothes were black, too; it helped him to meld well into the darkness of his world.

But, Hector wasn't looking at his clothes. What concerned him most was the vampire's companion. An extremely frightened woman was pressed into his side, a pale hand with long, bony fingers pressed over her mouth. Tears were spilling from bloodshot eyes, and she didn't look relieved to see Hector. She seemed even more terrified by these two strange men.

Hector looked at the vampire. "She is nothing to you, vampire. Who are you to victimize her in such a way?"

The vampire hummed with humor, and he licked at the woman's ear. "My name is Sevan, Hunter. And this woman is mine for the taking."

"You will release her immediately," Hector said harshly. "And you answer for your treacherous actions, both to our Prince and to me for the harm you've caused."

"Harm?" Sevan lifted his head away from the woman's and looked at Hector fully. "I am doing my own business. What harm have I caused you?"

"You've tormented my lifemate for years, and have caused her to live in fear! That is an unforgivable offense, and I will make you pay!"

"Lifemate?" Sevan asked incredulously. "Lifemate?" he suddenly threw back his head and laughed loudly. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard. "That slimy little bitch is your supposed promised one? Am I suppose to believe THAT?"

"I don't care what you believe! I do not have to explain myself to you!" Hector raised his hand towards them. "You will let her go right now!"

"But she is quite useful to me at the moment." Sevan hugged the woman tighter to him. "Her body's blood will give me strength and power. All I have to do is rip this little throat out and suck her dry, and you are no match for me."

The woman wailed against his hand, and tried to struggle, but Sevan was too strong for her. Hector didn't bother to hide his disgust. "What you seek is false power, foul creature. And it only shows your profound weakness. You may have fooled yourself into thinking that you are strong, but you are in fact weak and a coward. If you were truly as strong as you say you are, then you would've waited for your lifemate. Instead, you've done nothing but terrorize people and terrorize my lifemate for whatever sick reasons you might have!" Hector stepped closer to them. "Now, let her go and meet your end!"

Sevan didn't look intimidated by Hector, or even angry by his words. He only laughed even harder and clutched the woman tighter to him. "Your words are useless! For what would I need to wait for my lifemate, when I already have her by my side?"

Hector growled in fury. "Let her go!" He finally lunged at them.

Sevan laughed, and shoved the woman hard into Hector's path. "You can't possibly defeat me!"

Hector quickly grabbed the woman, but then the ground rumbled. He scooped her up into his arms and jumped high into the air as black tentacles burst from the ground and reached towards him. He landed back on the ground several feet away and shoved the woman behind him as the tentacles lunged at him. He clenched his fists into tight balls, and concentrated. Fire sprung up between his fingers and he threw the fireballs at the tentacles. Thankfully they all caught fire instantly and disintegrated. He looked at the ground where the tentacles had sprung up, and rubbed a hand over his face in shame. A trap. He laid a trap for me, and I didn't even notice…

He made quick work of any dark influence over the area. Behind him the woman was hyperventilating, and completely hysterical. Once he was satisfied that the area was cleansed, he turned to her. "Do not be frightened. I will help you." he put full compulsion behind his words, gently demanding compliance.

The woman stopped crying instantly and calmed down. "What do you need to know?"

"How did you meet him?"

"I-I was out drinking with friends, and he—I just had this feeling. I left the bar and went outside, and he was there. And…" tears leapt into her eyes once more, despite his compulsion that she remains calm. "He told me he would kill me. He said a whole bunch of horrible things, and…I didn't want to go with him! But my feet wouldn't stop walking and I couldn't help myself!"

It appeared that Sevan snatched her not to kill her, but to use her as bait. And he was successful; in trying to save her, Hector hadn't been able to stop him from escaping.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "You're delirious from the night and wandered away from the bar in a drunken haze," he said, wiping her memory of this ordeal from her mind. "But you have sobered up, and you want to meet with your friends and go home. You will call a cab to take you home, and then you will call your friends to let them know you're all right."

Her eyes clouded over as the false memories set in. Hector directed her to a nearby gas station to make her phone calls, satisfied she wouldn't be involved in any more trouble that night. Then he quickly flew back to the hotel.

Something was odd with Sevan. He didn't seem to be working with the Morrison Center. Hector could imagine the society would definitely want a hand in trying to capture the McCormick sister. More so, Sevan didn't seem to care at all about lifemates in general. To joke about his hostage like that? Hector didn't understand the hatred the vampire felt for Penny, because it was now very apparent that Sevan hated her. Penny didn't even know him at all, and Hector saw no instances in her memories where they even met.

The most he could gather was that Penny constantly sensed his heartbeat, even when she was a teenager. But the two hadn't even met yet, so why did Sevan hate her so much?

I'm sure we'll all find out.

He got back to the hotel in record time. He'd been afraid that Sevan would be able to find the sisters while he was taking care of the woman. A quick check of the shields though showed that nothing had been disturbed.

Penny and Grace were as he'd left them, deeply asleep in bed. Hector leaned over Penny, tucking the covers around her. It still seemed so surreal to him that he'd truly found her, and that she was his. He was not so prideful though to think that he could magically change her ways. She didn't trust anyone, with good reason, and she certainly didn't trust him despite the help he'd provided.

"I will protect you, päläfertiil." He leaned down and brushed a kiss over her forehead. "I swear on my life that nothing will ever hurt you ever again."

Penny didn't respond to him, but he could sense the peace in her mind. Grace was still curled by her side, and her mind was equally calm. It was almost compulsory now, that he see Fatima in this young face. Grace was so unlike his own little sister, but he'd felt an immediate connection to her. And she wasn't causing him any trouble, which was also surprising.

Hector maintained a powerful sleep compulsion over the both of them though as he left them alone. He couldn't risk Penny running off like this again. He closed the bedroom door behind him, and sighed. To have the Morrison Center after them, in addition to a rogue vampire, would make his task very difficult. "Tariq, are you still awake?" he reached out to his fellow Carpathian, even though there was quite a distance between them.

"I am," was the stoic reply. "And I congratulate you on finding your lifemate, Hector. This has given the rest of us great hope in these tapes."

"It is more than the Morrison Center with these two. A vampire named Sevan has deliberately targeted Penny for some unknown reason. I can find nothing in her memories that would suggest that they had even met, but Sevan seems to hate her quite strongly."

"The Morrison Center is tightly investigating their failed assassination attempt on the sisters in the Appalachians. They haven't found the bodies of the would-be killers yet, but our tactics are not new to them. They're going to be following all three of you very closely."

"If they think they'll traumatize these girls any further, they're sorely mistaken." Hector didn't hide the rage from his voice as he slowly sat down on the couch. "They've completely destroyed my lifemate's life, and her sister has had nothing resembling a normal life!"

"So the baby did live." Hector didn't miss the note of interest in Tariq's voice. "Is she also psychic?"

"Grace shares Penny's abilities, but she's also eight years old," Hector warned.

"It is not my intention of approaching her," Tariq answered defensively. "She is far too young to induce colors. Besides, I have seen both McCormick sisters through you, Hector, and I feel nothing for either. If Grace were in fact my lifemate, I believe I would feel a connection as Gregori did."

Gregori had felt an instant connection to his lifemate Savannah, and while she was still in Raven's womb. Tariq had a valid point. "I trust you, my friend. If it were not for your system, I wouldn't have found Penny."

"You would have found her in due time—"

"No. She is in far too much danger. If I hadn't found the tape sooner, she would surely be dead now."

"And it is your duty to protect her…and her sister. Have you erased Grace's memories yet?"

Hector said nothing, but the silence was answer enough. "You would allow such a young mind to continually live with this darkness?"

"She has awareness when I try to control her, Tariq. And it appears she doesn't like being controlled."

"Perhaps the knowledge of what's going on will help to keep her safe," Tariq conceded. "But you will erase her memories once you get rid of this vampire and the society members after her, won't you?"

It would be the ideal thing to do, since Grace knew nothing of childhood normalcy. "I will see how things go."

Tariq sighed. "You are still on the East Coast, are you not? I will contact some of our allies there to help you."

"We are going up into Maine. Penny believes that a human male by the name of Martin Quincy has been in contact with the Morrison Center. I can attest to the fact that Penny was still in hiding before they met, and then suddenly Sevan made contact with her and she was involved in that shootout."

"But if the vampire and the Morrison Center aren't working together, then it might have been all just a coincidence."

That might've been true…if Martin hadn't known Penny's real name.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Penny."

How had he known her name? She hadn't even introduced herself as Shelby. He wouldn't have surely pulled the name 'Penny' from out of nowhere!

"This does sound suspicious," Tariq said thoughtfully. "However, it isn't like the Morrison Center to make such a simple mistake like that. Has your woman ever met this man in the past?"

"I looked through her memories, and I never saw him."

"But in any case, he undoubtedly knows something, so it is wiser to go up and meet with him. You in turn will be able to read his mind and find out what he knows…whether or not he is involved with the Morrison Center."

Yes, it would be wisest to make contact with Martin Quincy now. If he knew nothing, and his calling Penny by name was a coincidence, then Hector only needed to wipe his memory of her. But if he was involved with the Morrison Center…he needed to be taken care of.

"In the meantime, watch over your woman," Tariq said warily. "The American women have given the Hunters a great deal of trouble. Since Penny McCormick seems prone to fleeing, you'll need to keep a tight watch on her."

"I would watch over her regardless. But, thank you for your help." Hector pulled away from Tariq, his mind once more on Penny. He didn't doubt she would give him trouble, but the prospect was also somewhat exciting to him. After living so long, and losing everything he ever cared about, these awakened feelings and these two very strange girls were very refreshing.

"But with any luck, Penny will be more compliant with me."

"Wake up, päläfertiil."

A dream fog immediately lifted from Penny's mind, and in an instant she was wide awake. She opened her eyes in deep confusion, and slowly sat up. It was dark inside the bedroom, and she didn't remember going to sleep. Was it night out already? Or did she just take a short nap?

"A whole day has passed, sívamet," Hector told her. He wasn't present in the room, though. "You are as fully rested as you can be. Now, go get something to eat with your sisar."

Penny looked at the room as the confusion grew. "A whole…day? I lost a whole day?" she flung the covers back and jumped out of bed. "They'll get us!"

"Nobody will get you," Hector soothed her. "You are perfectly safe, Penny."

"There's no such thing as 'perfectly safe'!" it felt so weird to be talking aloud when she subconsciously knew Hector wasn't in the room with her. "We're hunted! We have to keep moving!"

"We aren't going anywhere, at least not for the moment."

"You're not included in this equation! And where the hell are you?"

"There is a serious matter I must tend to. I will tell you in fully shortly, but go get something to eat—"

"GRACE!" Penny shrieked, noticing for the first time that her little sister wasn't in the room with her. "Grace, where are you?"

"Out here, Penny!" Grace called through the door.

Penny flung open the door. Grace was sitting at the suite's dining room table, nonchalantly eating a pile of strawberry-covered pancakes. Penny gaped at her. The little girl was simply sitting there, eating breakfast as if it were a normal situation.

She wouldn't be Grace otherwise, she thought wryly. "Gracie, are you all right?"

"Of course I am," Grace said neutrally. "Why wouldn't I be? Hector ordered these pancakes for me. Wasn't that nice of him?"

"Uh…" Penny slowly took a seat at the table. "Gracie, Hector may be helping us for some reason, but I don't want you to be alone with him."

Grace looked at her calmly. "Why? He's your boyfriend isn't he?"

"No, he's not," Penny said firmly.

Grace thought it for a moment. "No, I guess not."

Penny relaxed slightly. "Grace—"

"But he's your lifemate."

Penny felt a strong headache come on. "Grace, do you even know what that means?"

"Do you?" Grace asked bluntly.

Penny sighed heavily. "It doesn't matter about it."

"But it matters if he's helping us, and is nice to us. Here." Grace held out her fork. "Have a bite. It's really good."

Penny shook her head, feeling an uncomfortable churning in her stomach. "No thank you, sweetie, I'm not hungry."

"But you haven't really eaten anything in days, Penny. Don't you want to eat?"

"I just…I don't know, Gracie." She really hadn't been hungry the past couple of days. Was it related to her stress?

"That…is probably my fault," Hector said reluctantly. "I made a blood exchange with you in order to heal you. You're probably still feeling the effects of my blood, and Carpathians live on blood and not human food—"

"You gave me BLOOD?" Penny shrieked, jumping to her feet. "I drank your blood?" But she'd thought that'd been a dream! A hot, erotic dream where he held her against his body. A body that was finely built of hard ridges and firm muscle…no, no! These thoughts were inappropriate!

Grace stared at her blankly. "Are you all right, Penny?"

Penny flushed with the realization she was screaming at a man who was not present, in the presence of her sister. "I-I—"

"You've been talking to yourself a lot," Grace observed cautiously. "Maybe you aren't getting enough sleep."

"Maybe I'm still asleep," Penny groaned, pressing a hand to her face as she sank back down into the chair. "Maybe this is the nightmare?"

Grace shook her head. "You're awake. You're just embarrassed about your feelings for Hector that it's giving you stress."

"Gracie, there are so many things that give me stress that this one guy could hardly make any of it worse."

"But we're safe," Grace pointed out. "Those guys in the car shooting at us didn't get us. And we haven't gotten creepy phone calls or had nightmares since Hector stepped in. So what else can be stressing you?"

"She has a good point," Hector said.

"Oh, just SHUT UP! Gracie, I'm not talking to you," she quickly interjected.

Grace didn't look offended by the gaffe. "Are you talking to him, then?"

"Gracie—"

Penny felt a brush at her back, and stiffened as arms slid around her in an intimate hug. "Hello, sívamet."

"Let me go!" Penny struggled in his arms, but Hector wasn't budging. "Where the hell were you? And why did we sleep in until NIGHT?"

"So you wouldn't escape on me, which is what you would've done." Hector brushed his lips over her curly hair. "I can watch over you properly, especially when we take our leave."

"You—stop it! How dare you handle me like this in front of a child?"

But Grace stared at the scene in front of her blankly. "Do you want pancakes, Hector?"

"No, Sisar, I have already fed." He let Penny go then, but with obvious reluctance.

Penny brushed her arms off. "Fed…off some poor idiot, right?"

"Does this mean you drink blood like a vampire?" Grace asked. "But you aren't giving us nightmares or hurting us. Does that mean you're a "good" vampire?"

Hector nearly laughed at her questions. "I'm afraid there's no such thing as a "good" vampire, Grace. Well, there was just one, but he was a great exception."

"So why were you gone?" Penny asked. She poured herself a glass of water and gingerly drank it. Even the taste of tap water turned her stomach.

Hector looked at Grace warily. Tariq's words rang true in his mind. "I will speak to you about it separately."

Penny tensed. "It's bad, isn't it?"

"Why can't you tell me?" Grace asked. "I can keep a secret."

Hector walked over and tucked some of her short curls behind her ear. "I know, Sisar, but this news is very disturbing. Far too disturbing for you."

Grace's eyes narrowed suddenly, and she frowned deeply. "I'm a kid, but I'm not an idiot. A car full of bad guys shot at us. What else can shock me?"

Hector stared at her. He wasn't use to this behavior in a child. He was use to seeing children in temper tantrums, and screaming. Not stoic annoyance, like Grace had. Not even Carpathian children really acted like this.

"Grace." Penny walked around the table and knelt down, sliding an arm around her shoulders. "You're a big girl, and you're so strong. But please heed what Hector has to say."

Grace looked at her. "I—"

"He told you about the vampire, didn't he? That's proof enough that he trusts you, Gracie, and sees you as more than just a kid. This news must be bad, very bad. I don't want to hear it, but I know I must. Please, just wait here and finish your breakfast—dinner, okay?"

Grace was silent for a long time. Finally, she nodded. "Okay. Can I order more pancakes, then? This time with blueberries?"

"Okay, sure," Penny laughed, unsure of how Grace could have more of an appetite for pancakes with the stack already in front of her. She kissed her on the head. "We'll be just a minute."

Hector ordered the blueberry pancakes and left a hefty tip with Grace as they went back into the bedroom. Penny sat on the bed so that her back was against the headboard. "Okay…what is it?" her stomach was in knots. She truly didn't want to hear this potentially awful news. But she knew Hector was telling her for a reason.

Hector sat down on the bed, at Penny's feet. He picked up one of them into his hands and slowly massaged the arch. The gesture took Penny off-guard and she sat up straighter. "D-Don't distract me!"

"I'm not," Hector said slowly. "I'm easing the tension from you."

It was working; nobody had ever massaged her feet before, but she could feel magic in his fingers. She relaxed very slightly. "All right, what's the news?"

Hector hesitated for a moment. "A young child was murdered last night."

"WHAT?" Penny sat up fully, shock and horror engulfing her. "W-Wha—how—oh, my God!"

"A vampire attack," Hector said, his tone quiet. "The child was a six-year-old boy. According to detectives and family, his window was open last night to let in cool air, and the next morning he was gone. Some neighbors had said they'd heard singing in the night, and they'd mistaken it for some crazy woman. Police found the boy's body on a park bench, underneath a blanket."

"A blanket…" tears stung Penny's eyes and she pressed her fingers over her mouth. "The vampire…h-he killed a child and then threw a blanket over him? Like he was putting him to bed?"

"…It would appear so. Sevan was the vampire I had contact with last night, so I know it was him. He had a woman with him, but I stopped him from doing anything to her. He obviously turned around for a child once I lost track of him." Hector's tone was cold and bitter, and his insides were numb. An innocent little boy was senselessly killed…and on his watch, too. What was Sevan thinking, to kill a child? Didn't he realize the ramifications he would face from many different species over this?

But he doesn't care. All he wants to do is torment these girls, and killing this child is easy for him.

"…Hector."

"What is it?"

Penny looked at him fully. Her eyes were full of tears, but she wasn't crying. "This Sevan…is this the same one tormenting us?"

"…Yes."

"And he killed this little boy because of me?"

"He killed the child because as a vampire he thrives on death. If it were not this boy, then someone else would've been killed."

Hector's assurance didn't make Penny feel any better. "If we stay here any longer, will he just kill more children?"

"He will not strike so soon after this kill, else wise alerting more hunters to his presence. But…he has made it clear that his focus, for some reason, is on you."

"But why me?" she demanded. "I could hear his heartbeat since I was a teenager! He called me a murderer! He obviously knows I killed those people with the Morrison Center, but you're saying they're not linked! So why is he even after me?"

"I do not know. Considering I saw nothing of him in your memories—"

"I told you not to read my thoughts!" Penny pulled her foot out of his hands.

"The most I can guess is that perhaps he fixated upon you as a potential lifemate when he turned, but once he realized you weren't his lifemate his hope turned into bitterness."

Penny was silent for a long moment. "We need to go now. Otherwise he'll just kill more children, here."

Hector nodded. "It's not your fault he kills, but he will kill around you to get your attention and torment you."

"Right." Penny jumped from the bed and rushed over to her suitcases. "The more I move and the less I settle, the less chance he has to kill people." She pulled out a change of clothes but looked over her shoulder. "Can you leave the room for a minute?"

Hector arched an eyebrow slightly. "You are only taking your clothes off, sívamet. It's no big deal."

"No big…" Penny felt a strong urge to throw something at him. "I'm not getting changed in front of you!"

"Why not? I am your lifemate, and you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Look at your feelings. Are you embarrassed?"

No, she wasn't. It actually embarrassed her though that she wasn't embarrassed about showing her body to him. She quickly brushed it off, though. "Just wait outside. What will Grace think if we leave the room together and I'm a new set of clothes?"

"She will think that you changed," Hector said amusingly. "Or what do you think she'll think?"

"Just leave!"

"All right." Hector slowly rose from the bed. He could fade from the room and simply reappear in the main area of the suite, but he wanted some normalcy with the sisters. "We shall leave then once you both are ready."

"Wh—we?" Penny looked at him incredulously. "You don't think you're invited with us, do you?"

"Of course I am. Did you think I'd let you run off alone again?"

Penny didn't bother to argue. Perhaps letting Hector ride in the car with them was better than him randomly teleporting there later. She turned her back to him and started lifting up her shirt, not noticing he wasn't completely out the door.

Hector found the curve in her slender bare back to be very appealing. He bit down on his lower lip as a profound sense of need overtook. He closed the door behind him, not quite trusting himself. Maybe she was right; if he saw more of her body, he would be far more tempted to claim her than to flee.

Later, he told himself. Leave it for later…

He turned from the door and nearly walked headlong into Grace. Surprisingly, the little girl was suited up to go. "So are we leaving?"

"Yes, Sisar," he answered warily. "Did you finish your pancakes?"

"I'm full," she said. "But there'll be other times." She paused before she continued. "Is Penny okay? She felt very upset."

"She'll be okay, Grace." he put his hand on her shoulder. "And so will you. You are both under my protection and I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Grace shrugged. "I thought so. You would've left us to die out there if you didn't care. Penny doesn't trust you, though."

"I know this, Sisar." He tried not to smile. Grace was warily trusting of him, and it pleased him somewhat that he didn't have to create false memories of friendship with the child. One of the biggest reasons he hesitated to erase her memories was because of her mature nature. She took any crisis with a minor grain of salt, and didn't seem traumatized but her hellish life. Still, the thought of giving her memories of peace, even false ones, was tempting.

"Why do you call me that?" Grace asked bluntly.

"Call you what?" he asked her.

"That word. It sounds like 'sister', but I'm not your sister. Do you see me as a sister because you're Penny's boyfriend?"

The bedroom door opened sharply. "Gracie, I've told you many times that he's not my boyfriend!" Penny glared at him as she brought out the suitcases. "Now, let's get ready!"

"So he's coming with us?" Grace asked.

"…Yes," Penny said reluctantly.

"If he's not your boyfriend, why is he coming with us? You never let anyone else travel with us."

"Gracie—"

"I call you that because, yes, I do see you as a sister," Hector interjected gently. "Does it bother you?"

Grace thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "No."

"Let's just go," Penny said. "Before Sevan hurts anyone else."

"Who's Sevan?" Grace asked.

"It's nothing for you to worry about," Hector. "But we do need to move quickly and get to Maine. There's someone up there we have to meet."