A/N: I know the last chapter was left on a cliffhanger, a big one, but my muse demanded we go see Eric. We will get back to the fight between Felipe and Brandt shortly-ish. This chapter was just begging to be written.

Chapter 20:

EPOV

I roared in frustration and anger. My indignation pouring through me. Throwing me into a bloodlust that I hadn't experienced since the attempt on Freyda's life 20 years into our contract, our marriage. That had been a battle – that was for the thrill of it – from bathing in my enemies' blood. It was able to be quelled, easily satiated. I consumed my weight in blood. I felt like the Viking again – a warrior, a force of nature. It was exhilarating, exciting, fulfilling. I had hoped to find more enemies at Freyda's threshold to vanquish.

This was not that.

Now I wanted her enemies to win. To open the door, invite them in, and watch as they reduced her to a powerless shell of a vampire. But I would insist that her final death was mine to deliver. And then I would bathe in her blood as I drained every bit of life from her, slowly and painfully.

I felt the pangs from all my children through our bond. For the second time in 50 years, I felt strange feelings through my tie with Pam; they registered, but I was far too gone – consumed by my rage – to question why the hell those kinds of emotions were seeping into our bond.

I should have torn Freyda's head from her body. The second she laid her bony hand on my son.

When I first laid eyes on her, I should brought her the true death swiftly and without restraint. She had rained down nothing by anguish and pain into my undead life. I had put up with her shit for far too long. Contract or not, I was fucking done.

I destroyed everything my hands got a hold of. Smashed every bug, ripped every painting, crushed every piece of furniture in the gilded cage Freyda allowed me. For the first time ever, I wished that I had accepted Freyda's offer to share her resting chamber. At the time, I had still been pining for Soo…her and I refused to sully our relationship by sharing that kind of intimacy with Freyda, allowing her access to me when I was at my most vulnerable.

I should have been thinking 10 moves ahead. Foreseen this.

Because then I could tear her to pieces while she slept. Or string her up – wrapping her in silver, exacting thousands of cuts with a dull knife, only to start the process over again once she had healed enough. Peeled her skin off bit by bit. Snatched her eyes out of her fucking skull.

My bloodlust was not subsiding, if anything it was growing and I growled realizing that, in some sense, my children were egging me on through their ends of the bond – especially Brandt.

My poor son. Barely 50 years old, forced to regrow his eyes. And for what?! Because I made a fucking phone call! Because I had the audacity to be curious. Fuck! How could I forget that Freyda was little more than an insane, jealous bitch?

I hung my head between my hands. Clamping down my bonds, I let the guilt wash over me. And that guilt pushed at the bloodlust, forcing it back into submission. Control was finally returning to me. My mind no longer cloudy, no longer demanding destruction. The guilt was ephemeral. It was not my fault that my wife – now my sworn enemy – had chosen to seek her revenge through pain on my child.

It was my duty to avenge the wrong inflicted upon him.

Even if it took the next 100 years, I was going to kill Freyda, pull her ugly ass apart piece by piece. I was her harbinger of death – and when the time came, I had every intent to crush her eyes under my heel after I plucked them, one at a time, from her awful face.

My resolve quickened. And then a noise broke the frigid silence. A phone call.

"Don't do anything stupid, Vampire."

What. The. Fuck. The portals were closed; contact had been cut. He had no cause to call me. How did he even have this number? Why would he even call? I had nothing to offer him.

"You should have destroyed the bugs years ago. I would have been able to call you much sooner."

Fucking fairies.