Oh my God I am SO happy for all the readers. I was right, these two are the cutest thing. Let me assure you that this will be finished, and FAIRLY soon, but I'm trying to stretch out the updates a bit.

While the next chapter comes pretty close to it, Serana will not be using her Vampire Lord form. That form is what her father became when he lost his sanity and stopped loving her, so she hates it. With a vengeance. Assume that if she DID, Serana would be freaked out.

The carriage rides were starting to grate on my nerves, mostly because I could have run faster. But I wasn't leaving Serana behind.

That thought opened the floodgate for a whole bunch of other ones, most prominently the night in Breezehome. I brought it up to her during one of the quiet moments where neither of us were speaking.

She shrugged. "You were upset, and I was worried. You did the same for me at the camp."

"My pack-mate was hurting, of course I tried to help." I winced when I said that. The beast-blood was gaining more influence as Masser got fuller.

She noticed, and her eyebrows drew together. "Is that Elayn talking, or the wolf?"

"Both," I said, refusing to lie to her. "I know I'm probably just a mongrel to you, but you've fought at my side. Hell, you even kept me from dying when I got sick. In my world, that makes you part of my pack, and I take care of my own."

Serana shook her head sharply. "You're not just a mongrel to me. Damn it Elayn, you know what my life has been like. If I didn't care, why would I..." She looked down.

I smiled a little. "I swear, when it comes to figuring out this stuff, vampires are just like humans." I grabbed her hand, and squeezed it gently. "We both care, that much I know. And I'll fight to the death to keep you safe. No matter how this ends."

It was a small motion, but she squeezed my hand back and I grinned. "I'm going to get some rest, if you don't mind. It's easier to sleep around you."

"You sleep better around a vampire?" she asked.

I dropped onto the floor and crossed my arms behind my head, eyes shut. "I trust you."

The only sound was the horses and the cart moving over bumpy road.

From Solitude, we retraced our steps to the shore where the boat was tied to the dock. It hadn't been disturbed, which was somewhat surprising to me. "I guess they didn't think it mattered anymore?"

"They probably forgot it even existed." She settled into the boat and grabbed the oars. "I'll guide us to the inlet, and away from the gargoyles."

I did the same, shifting the boat a little more than she had. "Oh great, more of those nightmares. My lucky day."

She rolled her eyes, and started rowing. Last time we had done this, it had been a subconscious challenge for one of us to row faster than the other, but the glint in her eyes as they met mine told me that it wasn't subconscious anymore. I grinned challengingly and picked up the pace, letting my beast-blood ease the burn in my muscles and let me row faster. It was a close competition- one that I lost because if I didn't stop relying on my beast she was going to come to the forefront- but it definitely got us there in record time.

Her eyes were tinged red when I looked again, both of us standing on the shore. "Are you going to be okay?"

"There should be thralls in the lower parts of the castle," she said, voice rough. "I'll be fine until then."

That was worrying, but the look on her face told me not to push it. I readied my bow, along with three arrows in the same hand. They came in handy nearly immediately when a skeleton rounded the corner. It barely had time to hiss before my arrow knocked its skull clean off its neck, and the thing collapsed in a heap.

A few more well-placed shots take care of the rest of the skeletons patrolling the dock. Inside the undercroft, my steps were halted by an awful stench. It was only a remnant, likely imperceptible to a human, but my nose was more keen and I definitely caught it.

"The old water cistern," she explained, seeing my face. "The smell could be a lot worse."

"I believe it," I told her.

There were corpses scattered around the undercroft, of death hounds and skeletons, and one twisted-looking vampire. The journal pages she had stuffed in her ragged clothing told me that she had been trying to tame the death hounds herself, and use them to defend herself. From the looks of things, she had not succeeded.

Serana pointed out a lever above a table filled with scattered books. "Pull this, and then take a left on the bridge. It's one of those weird double-barred security measures that my father put in when he got more paranoid. It leads out to the courtyard."

"Seriously? Double-barred? Dwarven ruins aren't even that bad!" I shook my head in disbelief. "Paranoia at its finest. Let's go."

The massive Frostbite spider down one of the tunnels was quite the shock, despite the webbing I saw along the way. Mostly it was the size of the thing that startled me. I froze entirely, and Serana had to throw me backwards so that she could kill it. I landed heavily on my rear, and immediately got hit with a stray web the damn thing was aiming at Serana with. The spider was dead when I finally ripped off the last scrap of it and ran to the vampire, who was breathing heavily.

I reached a hand toward her, but jerked back when her head snapped up. Her eyes were no longer amber; they were a bloody orange that burned so hot I could almost feel the flames licking at my skin. Her face, normally somewhat more angular than a typical nord, was now almost skeletal. She bared her fangs in a snarl at me, and I backed away slowly.

"Serana," I said carefully, hands held up. "Wolf, remember? I smell like wet dog. Don't eat the wet dog."

Her eyes were wild, and for a moment I doubted I got through to her. Both hands were ablaze with blue and red magicka that sparked threateningly. Just as she seemed about to leap at me, a tremor ran through her. She sniffed the air almost like I had a habit of doing, but more feral. Whatever she smelled caused her to run back toward the cistern with superhuman speed.

I followed slowly, wary that she might jump out at the shadows. My beast clawed at me from within, begging me to let her loose, let her keep us safe from the not-Serana that could rip my throat out easily as long as I was still human. I fought her down as best as I could, and continued on.

The vampire was crouched in the midst of a pile of bodies, some torn and some whole. Viscera and bone peaked through torn skin like some macabre sculpture. There at the top, she tore into a corpse that, while faint, still had a heartbeat. Only a moment longer, which seemed to me a mercy. I heard the slick, sloshing sound of blood being drained from the still-warm corpse slowly stop, and it was silent.

"Serana?" I repeated, voice echoing off the walls.

Her reply was faint, but I heard it. "Leave me alone."

"No."

I came to stand by the pile, facing her. She was a mess, blood smeared around her mouth and gore spattering her armor. Her eyes were once again amber, but they were so filled with pain that I almost wished for the wildness. That I at least knew what to deal with. "Leave me," she said, desperation creeping into her tone.

"No," I repeated, softer now, and stretched my arm out toward her, palm facing up.

She slumped, still atop the pile of bodies. "Why are you helping me?" she asked through gritted teeth, desperation now despair. "I could have killed you."

"No."

"Is that all you can say?" Though her voice was bitter, she took my outstretched hand and stepped down.

I looked at the armor, and watched in wonder as the blood seemed to absorb into the metal and leather and cloth . It seemed vampires weren't fans of prolonged clean-ups after a bloodbath. I tore a piece of cloth from the rags of the feral vampire that lay at our feet and used it to wipe the blood from her mouth. Neither of us spoke, as if waiting for the other to start.

"There," I murmured, as the last stain of crimson was removed. "You look better now."

"Why?" she asked again, her voice small.

I quirked a smile, just a small one. "Pack. You wouldn't hurt me, and I won't leave you behind."

"I could have-"

"Shh," I said, cupping the side of her face in my hand. "You had the time to tear my throat out when the spiderweb still held me, but you didn't. You found the thrall, and now you're fine. That's all that matters to me. Are you fit to move on?"

Serana stared at me, and nodded slowly. "The garden should be past the bridge. There was a lever that the spider was guarding. It will lead us there."